Between Good And Evil
by Dutchygirl
Summary: Sometimes you have to work together with the one you hate...or love. How much difference could one magical day make? PhoebeCole
1. Default Chapter

_This story begins a couple of months after Centennial Charmed (I really hated that epsiode). I've written this story especially for Phoebe/ Cole fans._

_I know that this chapter is a bit short and not very detailed, but I'm just getting started. I'm sorry if I've made some spelling errors, but my first language isn't English...I appreciate every review and yes, I will finally shut up now._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed...(like anyone really thought I did own it)_

"What were you thinking?"

"He's human, not a demon."

"Well, we thought that before."

"Why did you even talk to him?"

Phoebe and Paige were sitting in the kitchen, eating their breakfast. They vaguely could hear Piper and Leo's voices coming closer. Piper and Leo were obviously arguing about something and that wasn't a rare event that occured in the manor. Especially now Piper was pregnant and she could explode by the smallest things.

Phoebe took a bite of her sandwich, while Paige tried to suppress a yawn.

"What do you say? Piper's hormones or did Leo do something stupid?" Phoebe asked.

"I'll go for Leo this time. Twenty bucks?"

"You're on."

Piper stormed into the kitchen as first, followed by Leo.

"I just bumped into him," Leo tried to explain.

Piper only gave an angry look as answer and walked to the refrigerator. She took some yogurt out of it and sat next to Paige and Phoebe, while Leo still was standing at the same place.

"And a goodmorning to you too," Paige said with a friendly smile to Piper and Leo.

After a moment of silence and some few other angry looks between Leo and Piper, Phoebe was the first one to say something.

"What's wrong?"

"I...," Leo began to speak, but he cut out his sentence when he saw Piper's piercing look.

"Leo was at the market today," Piper gave as explanation.

Paige and Phoebe exchanged a confused look.

"...Okay, I have to go to work. I'll hear later how you will work out this big problem, right?" Phoebe said to Piper and Leo, while she got up from her seat. She put her plate by the dishes and grabbed her bag.

"I'll see you lovebirds...," Phoebe pointed to Piper and Leo, who gave a fake smile as return.

"...and your 20 bucks later," Phoebe pointed with a smile to Paige, before she left the kitchen.

Again there was an akward silence in the kitchen. Piper ate her yogurt, Leo finally sat down on a chair and Paige tapped with her fingers at the table.

"So...the market," Paige mumbled.

"Don't look at me like I'm insane. He was at the market with Cole," Piper bursted.

Paige looked shocked at Leo, who was making an apoligizing gesture.

"It was a coincidene I met him. I was really surprised to see him...so alive. I was just talking to him."

"Yes, like you were friends or something," Piper added.

"What else was I supposed to do? Fight him with all those people at the market who could see us?"

Piper and Paige kept silent, because Paige still was shocked and Piper was too mad to think of any comment.

"He's been human for 4 weeks now and he doesn't want to have anything to do with magic ever again."

"And that's why he's talking to you?" Paige asked suspicious.

"It was just a coincidence we met. I don't think I'll ever meet him again."

"But how...we vanquished him. How can he be alive and human?" Paige asked, while Piper's angry look at Leo didn't seem to dissapear at all.

"Cole didn't seem to know it as well. He was in hell and suddenly he was here again with no magical powers again," Leo ignored Piper.

"Hell just isn't anymore what it used to be," Paige mumbled.

"Yeah, that's what Cole says...and you believe that?" Piper asked Leo, ignoring Paige's comment.

Leo looked above himself.

"They're calling me," Leo said.

"Oh no, mister, you're not going anywhere now...," Piper shouted, but there were already only blue sparkles to be seen at the place where Leo had been standing.

"I hate it when he does that," she said to Paige.

Piper and Paige were both silent for a moment. They thought what this was going to mean now Cole returned again. Could he truly be good? Could he be just human without powers who wouldn't interfere their lifes...the life of their sister this time?

"Are we going to tell her?" Piper asked.

Paige didn't know what to answer. Telling Phoebe about Cole would probably hurt Phoebe and bring back everything that happened in the past, but not telling meant keeping a secret for her sister.

"What? That her demon ex escaped from hell again?"

"You think it's best to tell nothing?"

"I think Phoebe owes me 20 bucks."

Some days later

The doorbell rang. Leo opened the door and looked at the tall guy, who had a wounded woman in his hands. Leo scratched his forehead and looked for a moment in the direction of the kitchen, where the three Halliwel sisters were. He wondered what kind of abusives words Piper would say to him today, before he asked the ex-demon:

"Cole, what happened?"


	2. Human visit?

_Thank you so much for your reviews! Glad to know you didn't like Centennial Charmed either._

_I've got this whole story already figured out, so I'm going to try to finish one chapter every week . Unfortunately (well not for me ;) )I'm going on holiday for a week,the next update is probably going to be on Sunday in a week. Now, let's go on with the story..._

"I...can you heal her?" Cole asked Leo.

The eyes of the woman in Cole's hands were closed and she could hardly breathe. She had striking red hair. Leo looked again at the kitchen where Piper, Phoebe and Paige were, then he nodded and let Cole into the house. They walked to the living room, where Cole put the woman on the couch.

"Hey Leo, do you...," Phoebe who just walked into the living room stopped her sentence when she saw Cole.

Cole and Phoebe glared at each other for a few seconds. It had been a long time since they had seen each other. Cole brought his attention back to the wounded woman on the couch and Phoebe stared with disbelief to Leo, who avoided her gaze.

"Oh, no. This can't be...," Phoebe said, not believing what she saw. She held on to the wall to have something to hang on to.

She finally had started to pick up her life after all those months, after her life with Cole. And now he returned again...how could he just be sitting so calm and alive here in the manor? He was supposed to be dead. She felt anger coming in herself now she realized this wasn't a nightmare. Anger, because she hated him. Anger, because she loved him.

Piper and Paige walked into the living room, seeing a shocked Phoebe, a worried Cole, a wounded woman on the couch and Leo who was thinking of something to say to explain everything, but couldn't think of anything.

"Aren't you shocked?" Phoebe asked, when Piper and Paige had seen Cole and didn't say anything.

Piper and Paige didn't know what to answer.

"Hello? My demon ex we vanquished just pops in here and that's normal?" Phoebe raised her voice, trying to pervade her sisters.

"Do there ever happen normal things in this house?" Paige asked.

Phoebe stared at Paige, that wasn't the answer she wanted to hear. Piper walked towards Phoebe to tell the truth.

"We've heard Cole returned a few days ago and believe me...I didn't like to hear that," Piper said, while she looked at Leo.

"You knew!" Phoebe asked with even more disbelief. Cole returned and her sisters had kept it a secret for her. It was getting too much for her.

"Can we focus on the most important thing now? Somebody's dying here," Cole interrupted them and he looked concerned at the young lady with the wound in her stomach.

Everybody looked at the woman on the couch who was breathing her last breathes.

She was heavily bleeding. Her eyes were still closed and sweat sparkled at her forehead.

"What? Is that your new girlfriend or something?" Phoebe asked before she realized it sounded jealous.

"She was attacked by a demon and I witnessed it. I only came here because I thought Leo could heal her before she dies. After you heal her, I'll be gone for good," Cole answered. He still had his face pointed at the woman.

Leo wanted to put his hands at the wound of the woman, but stopped because of Phoebe.

"This got to to be a trick or something," Phoebe said.

"So you're just going to let an innocent die, because you don't trust me?" Cole asked, knowing that the charmed ones would always help an innocent in danger.

"I didn't say that. We should talk before we do anything, Piper, Paige!" Phoebe said annoyed, while she stormed off back to the kitchen, followed by her sisters.

"We're sorry, Phoebe. We just didn't want to...," Paige started to explain nervously, but Phoebe cut off her sentence.

"I don't want to hear it, okay? The first thing we're going to do is get rid of that problem in the living room. He must go away out of our house as soon as possible."

Piper nodded and Paige looked slightly up to Phoebe, they still felt guilty for not telling their sister.

"He said he would go away if Leo heals that woman," Paige tried to help.

"Like we can trust him. It's just one of his idiotic plans."

"If he tries to do something, we'll stop him. We always do," Piper said, ready to fight demons.

For a moment it was quiet in the kitchen. Phoebe sighed as a sign to give in. She really didn't want to help Cole in any possible way, but if it was the only way to banish him out of her life, she had to.

"So, you had a fight with Piper?" Cole asked to Leo, who were in the living room.

Leo was about to answer, but stopped when he saw his wife coming back from the kitchen with Phoebe and Paige.

"Hey, don't you two even dare to whisper about me," Piper said.

"Or about me," Phoebe warned. She gave a cross look at the two men.

"And don't whisper about me either," Paige added.

"Why would we whisper about you?"

"Well...I'm...eh cute," Paige said before she sat down on the couch.

"You can heal her, Leo," Piper said to her husband.

Cole gave a gaze at Phoebe, slightly thankful, but Phoebe ignored his gaze completely. Leo held his hands above the wound of the woman. The always shining blue sparkles healed the wound in an instant. The woman opened her eyes and smiled. Then everything went very fast. A light, an attack, a demon. A demon shot electric energy and Piper could duck just in time.

"Table," Paige yelled and she threw the table at the electric demon, but the table went through him.

The grey monster went to the just healed woman and Cole. With one move he threw Cole away from the frightened woman. Phoebe tried to kick the demon, but this attack went through him as well and she landed at the floor. Paige ran to the woman and the demon. She touched the woman with her hand and wanted to orb, but somehow she didn't manage to use her powers. The evil creature screamed and shimmered with Paige and the woman, leaving Piper, Leo, Phoebe and Cole helplessly behind.

"This is al your fault," Phoebe pointed at Cole who was just standing up again.

"I don't know anything."

"Oh, yeah, it's a great coincidene that a demon shows up right at the same time you're here," Phoebe said, not really believing it was Cole's fault, but more to express her anger.

"Yes, because demons never come in this house," Cole answered sarcastically.

"Phoebe, Paige is taken away by a demon. We must find her," Piper intervened, after she had looked with horror at the burnt furniture. The insurance company probably wouldn't cover that.

Phoebe nodded and kept silent.

"Where did Paige's powers go?" Leo asked.

"We'll go look for that demon in the Book of Shadows. Maybe it's a demon who absorbs powers or something," Piper said, while she had walked to the stairs yet.

"We can handle this ourselves. Could you go?" Phoebe looked irritated at Cole.

"It will be my pleasure. Can I have my coat?" Cole asked Phoebe, who was a few metres away from him, already standing with his coat that he had left on the couch in her hands. He reached his hand out to his jacket. Bright blue lights appeared around his hand. The four of them looked shocked at his hand, where his coat now was instead of in Phoebe's hand.

"Oh, crap."


	3. Orbing it out

_It was a nice home-coming reading your reviews._

_I think they should have given Cole at least a heroic death, not one where everyone hated him in the end and nobody missed him. And the punishment in the 150th episode to live in a loveless void is way too harsh. I can go on for hours about how they treated Cole wrongly inCharmed, but I'll spare you that._

_I know Phoebe treats Cole shabbily in my story, but this will __change (it's a Phoebe/Cole-story after all) but not in this chapter yet._

"How did this happen?" Phoebe looked confused at Cole who didn't seem to know either.

Phoebe wondered whether it was an accident he got these powers or it was just one of his plans. She didn't know. She had believed him too much times.

"It was...Argentus, a silver demon. If you'll attack him with your powers, you'll lose them...," Piper read aloud out of the Book of Shadows.

"...when someones powers get stripped, these powers go the first best powerless being in the neighbourhood. So it makes sense Cole got those powers now," Leo added.

He looked up and then gave a short gaze at Piper who was still angry.

"I should go...the elders...," He mumbled.

"Don't think we're not going to talk about this situation later," Piper warned him, before he orbed out of the room.

Piper sighed very loudly, wondering if Leo could hear it. Then she brought her attention back to Cole with the powers of Paige.

"Can you orb?" She asked.

"I don't know how...It's not the same as shimmering."

"Paige orbed when she was affraid. We should scare you," Piper noted.

"I don't think there will be anything we can scare him with...perhaps his own reflection," Phoebe said.

For the first time Cole looked Phoebe right in the eyes. Seeing exactly what he had tried to avoid, a glare of anger and pain in her eyes.

Piper felt the tension between her sister and the ex-demon. She didn't know what to think of Coles return. She had been mad, but that was normal. She would be mad at anyone who had hurted her sister. Meant this return he would hurt her again? It was best to make sure he would go away as soon as possible.

Piper looked at her sister with a friendly smile. Phoebe gave a short gaze back. She probably still was angry, because Piper had kept silent about Cole. Piper looked back into the Book of Shadows to get out of this mess.

"It says here we can defeat Argentus by a potion and a spell. I'll go make this potion," Piper said, while she headed to the kitchen.

Phoebe wrote the spell that was written in the Book of Shadows to vanquish Argentus down on a piece of paper. When she was done she looked at Cole who was standing uncomfortably in the room.

She looked away and went to the old closet right in front of her. She took a commuting and a map out of it. She sat by the table and began to scry above the map to look for Argentus. The commuting stopped by a slum.

"A place just as despicable as you," Phoebe said, breaking the akward silence.

"I thought you could make better insults than that."

"Fine, I'll take it back. You're more despicable. And sorry if that wasn't harsh enough, but as opposed to some other people in this room I do have feelings."

Phoebe, you know I did care abou...," Cole started to say.

"Yes, you cared so much that you became the source of all evil."

"You're the one who killed me," Cole said, knowing it would piss her off.

Cole looked at the furious eyes of Phoebe. He didn't want to be here at all. The four weeks he had been alive again he had promised himself to never go to the Halliwels again. But this promise rather turned out to be a curse. Not a long ago he ran into Leo and today he had found a wounded woman attacked by demons, who he couldn't bring to the hospital, because of the horrible wounds he couldn't explain to doctors. The other promise he had made was to be good and this last promise was more important than the first. Somehow he had thought it would have been easier to keep his first promise.

"You're going to blame me now? You lied to me for months. I'm glad I killed you, I would do it again if I had the chance to do it all over again," Phoebe let Cole know and she continued, " No, I would do it better so you couldn't return and bring misery. All you do is bring misery and..."

White blue lights encircled Cole and he dissapeared. He returned to the room a few seconds later. Phoebe looked astonished at Cole.

"Anger, it's anger that makes you orb," She concluded.

"One perfect potion," Piper said who just came back from the kitchen and hold the potion in her hands.

"And one stunning spell," Phoebe said like her fight with Cole never had happened and gave the spell to Piper.

"Then we only need to find Argentus and..."

"Already found," Phoebe interrupted, while she pointed on the map at the place where the commuting had stopped.

"Then we only need to go to..."

"I can orb," Cole interrupted this time.

"...okay. Then we can go, unless there's something else that needs to be done what I can say so you can tell me you've already done that," Piper said who just in time had swallowed her words that they made a good team. Piper walked to Cole, so he could orb her.

"I'm not going to hold your hand," Phoebe struggled.

Piper frowned at Phoebe and Cole didn't seem to be surprised.

"I'm not going to hurt you," He said without thinking.

"It's a little bit too late for that," Phoebe said before she hold his hand with aversion.

It was dark. The woman Cole brought to the manor and Paige were nowhere to be seen. This place seemed to be empty besides some rotten furniture so far as they could see. They were in a muffy old house. It probably had been long a time ago when some someone had lived here. This house was ready to be pulled down. Suddenly the silver demon shimmered into the room.

"Piper!" Phoebe shouted when she saw the demon, who was about to attack Piper.

Piper reached out her hands to freeze Argentus, but it didn't work and she was struck by the lightning balls of the demon.

Phoebe and Cole hid themselves behind a broken closet. They looked from behind the book-case to Piper who laid unconscious on the ground, the potion and the spell beside her. The monster looked around to see any sign of Cole and Phoebe.

"I'll get the monster, you the potion and spell," Cole whispered.

Phoebe nodded. Cole walked away from the closet and Argentus saw a glimpse of him. Argentus began to throw his electric beam at Cole, who orbed just in time to another part of the space.

Meanwhile Phoebe ran to her sister and grabbed the potion, but the spell lay too far way. She started to go to a broken couch, but she stumbled and fell on the floor, through which she attracted the attention of the demon. In panic she threw the potion at him, but unfortunately the potion went right through him like all the other attacks they had made against him. The potion fell on the ground and broke, which maked the substance and the spell belonging to it powerless. The noise of the breaking potion distracted Argentus and gave Phoebe and Cole the oppurtunity to hide behind the broken couch.

Cole gave her a worried gaze and Phoebe pulled a piece of paper out of her trouser-pocket and gave it to Cole. He looked quickly at the things written on the paper.

"...when the people and world are okay?" He read softly aloud with his eyebrows frowned.

"I didn't had much time to write it," She couldn't believe he was mocking about her spell in a time like this.

She had written the spell before they went away in case everyhting went wrong...like now. It was a spell to go back in time, to be precise to go back in time one day ago, before Cole came back into her life.

A yellow light broke the couch into pieces. Cole and Phoebe ran both into a different direction. Argentus doubted for a moment which enemy he would take out first and then decided to go after Cole.

"Say the spell!" Phoebe screamed.

Cole looked once again at the spell at the piece of paper he still had in his hand. The demon held one of his electric energy balls in his hand, had his eyes set on Cole and aimed.

"Are you sure this spell..." Cole said while he tried to see where Phoebe was.

"Would you just say the stupid spell with me!" Phoebe yelled angrily.

She heard a great bang and looked scared into the room what happened. That was hard to do because it was dark. Finally she saw a cloud of smoke coming from where Argentus and Cole had been. She closed her eyes because of the dust that was surrounding her. She opened her eyes again when the dust seemed to be away. She saw a huge hole in the wall and to her relief she saw Cole sitting on the floor right beneath the hole. Argentus stood ready to attack again and she heard Cole talking. Then she realised he was saying her spell and she started to say it with him, remembering how the spell went.

_Return to when it all started, that day_

_when all powers are by the owners_

_when the dangers were little_

_when the people and the world are okay_

She began to feel very dizzy. The dark room became even more filled with darkness and slowly dissapeared. Her head was getting light, really light.

>>> 

Light. Everywhere was light. The light became vague green shapes. The shapes started to become detailed. Green, a lot of green shapes. Trees, bushes, flowers, plants. This seemed to be a forest.

She looked around and stopped when she saw Cole, who was also looking at the new surroundings he got in. On the one hand she was glad to see him, a familiar face. At least she wasn't alone here in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand it meant something went seriously wrong, because if the spell had worked he wouldn't be here. And she knew he was the reason why they had to use this spell. If he hadn't brought that stupid wounded woman to the manor, she never would have known her sisters lied to her, Paige and Piper hadn't been attacked by Argentus and she wouldn't have been in this forest...with him.

"You're okay?" Cole asked.

"Yes. Where are we?"

Cole didn't answer and she hadn't expect him to answer either. How did they get in this realm of nature? An advantage was that the electric demon wasn't here.

"Something went wrong," Cole broke the silence, after they already had started to wander off in the woods.

"You can say that again," Phoebe mumbled.

It was a real pain for her to walk in this scenery. She stumbled a few times, which wasn't a surprise if you were wearing high heels. On top of that the sun was shining fiery. In the distance she saw a figure walking.

"Look," She said to Cole, while she pointed at the figure which seemed to be a young child, now they got closer.

Phoebe walked straight to the boy. Maybe this wasn't the middle of nowhere after all. If there was a child there probably would be a mother and perhaps a whole village. Cole looked surprised at the kid.

"Wait, don't talk to that boy!"

Cole pushed her away behind a couple of bushes. Phoebe sat confused in the grass and watched the boy who still hadn't see them. The young man seemed perfectly normal to Phoebe and she turned again to Cole.

"What? You're affraid he's a demon who will blow us up?" Phoebe asked, remembering how overprotective Cole sometimes could be.

"Eh...maybe, that boy...that's me."

_A/N: Sorry for the bit lousy spell, but I'm not so good at riming in English. But as reassurance I can say that I'm not going to have to write another spell in this story. Okay, that's all I'm going to say about the course of Between Good And Evil for now. Till the next update! _


	4. Innocent blue eyes

_TrueLovelivesForever, you'll find the answer in this chapter._

_Thanks for the reviews. :) I actually don't have much to say now, so hopefully you'll enjoy this story and let me know what you think..._

"That's you?"

Phoebe looked at the boy, his innocent blue eyes, turned-up nose and the slight smile on his mouth. She saw the resemblance between the little boy and Cole.

"That can't be," she gasped.

"Well, I was a child once."

"You're sure? I mean...how...how...," Phoebe stammered, not knowing what to say.

Cole observed their location and the boy again, but now closer.

"Well, unless I have a double who wears exactly the same idiotic clothes as me when I was young and walks into the same looking forest where I used to live in the neighbourhood, it's me," Cole commented while he looked with a smile tothesurroundings he seemed to remember.

Phoebe still looked at Cole, the grown-up Cole, in confusion.

"Hm...I probably must have been 7 or 8 years old now. So we've travelled more than 100 years back in time," Cole continued.

"Over 100 years!" Phoebe shrieked, finally enable to say something again. Everything was going wrong today.

"Is everything alright?"

Cole and Phoebe were startled when they heard the young Cole saying these words to them. Phoebe had been in such a surpisement and Cole had been looking at the forest that they hadn't paid attention to the boy. He had found them after hearing Phoebes scream and now he was standing right in front of them.

"Wow, you look beautiful," The boy said to Phoebe in amazement.

Phoebe looked surprised at young Cole and then she looked at Cole, who grinned.

"I guess my taste didn't change in all those years," Cole said.

"What's your name?" Phoebe asked to make sure it really was Cole in his younger years.

"I'm not going to tell my name to strangers," The boy answered. Then he looked frightened to the sun who wasn't shining as brightly as before.

"I have to go," He shouted, while he already ran away.

"He sure is just as mysterious as you," Phoebe said, watching where the boy ran to.

Phoebe and Cole followed the boy carefully who headed toa village. Cole recognized his old house where the boy was now. Cole hid with Phoebe behind a couple of trees.

"Cole, where have you been? I told you to be back in time," They heard a voice say, that was coming out of the house.

A woman walked out of the house to the boy who gave her a scared gaze. She looked back at him with her light blue eyes. Her long brown hair moved because of a slant of wind. She looked around to see if anyone was watching. When she didn't see anyone her shape changed. Her brown hair became white, her face turned dark red, her hands were red as well with long yellow nails. Her blue eyes changed as last into a dark color.

"Don't let it ever happen again," She said to her son, who still looked scared at her.

Her red face changed back to her friendly human face. The boy nodded and followed her willingly back into the house.

"That was my ex mother-in-law? If anyone ever is going to complain about their mother-in-laws again to me..." Phoebe said started at the sight of the woman.

Cole looked at the front door which his mother had closed. It was very strange to see his mother again. It had been a long time since he had seen her for the last time. She hadn't taken care for him for a long period of time. Demons usually have children to increase their powers. Evil couldn't love after all.

"Why did we go back in time to this moment?" Phoebe asked, disturbing his thoughts.

"The spell was

_Return to where it all started, that day_

_when all powers were by the owners_

_when the dangers were little_

_when the people and the world were okay_," Phoebe tried to answer her question.

"Wait, I remember this...this is probably the day I used my powers for the first time," Cole remembered, when he saw the dark sky and one of the trees beside his house which was cut down.

"For the first time?"

"Yes, this is the day I shimmered for the first time. Three or four demons attacked my house. You know demons among each other fight a lot. They probably came for me, for my powers. The demons attacked my mother and she was wounded. So I shimmered with my mother, but the demons waited by our house and when my father came home...they killed him."

"I'm sorry," Phoebe said, wondering why they never had talked about Cole's past when they were together. Probably because it were only awful memories. She never had wanted to see him as a demon who killed a thousand innocent people for a decay. The past didn't matter, they lived in the here and now. Unfortunately she hadn't seen he was also evil in the here and now.

"I've got an idea, do you remember the ingredients for the potion that stripped my powers?" Cole suddenly said.

"I think I can," Phoebe answered, looking in doubt to Cole. What was he up to?

"We'll use the potion on me...my younger me, so I'll be human and I'll never bring a wounded woman to your lifes. It will bring you back to the future."

"But that means..."

"I'll be dead before I even have the chance to meet you, but that's a good thing, right? All I ever did was making you hurt in the end. You don't even believe in love anymore," Cole saidsadly to Phoebe.

"I don't..."

"Do you have a better idea? We can't stay here forever."

Phoebe didn't know another way to get out of here, so she kept silent.

"What were the ingredients?" Cole asked.

Phoebe remembered the day she was making a potion to strip his powers. She then had made the potion to be with him forever, to have everything from him and now ironically she would make the potion to lose everything from him. A potion to erase everything they had, she would never even meet him.

Phoebe named the ingredients and together they searched for them in the forest and the village. Cole knew the place still very well and it didn't take a long time to find them all. They walked back to Cole's old house and saw the young Cole sitting in the grass. They went towards the boy, who didn't see them, because he was sitting with his back to Phoebe and Cole.

"Throw the potion now," Cole said.

Phoebe had the potion in her hands and looked doubtful to both Coles.

"I can't."

"What!" Cole looked at Phoebe with wide open eyes. Young Cole turned when he heard Phoebe and Cole talking and followed their conversation.

"I ended up lonely and hurt, but I don't want to forget you. I mean, you were the love of my life and we had bad times...a lot, but I can't remember I was ever happier with someone else. I just don't want to lose those memories."

"We have no choice."

Cole grabbed the potion out of Phoebes hands and threw it at the boy, who looked scared at the two grown-ups and the incoming potion. He tried to protect himself through holding his hand before his eyes.

"No! Cole!" Phoebe yelled, watching the potion and the boy.

He felt a cold breeze, like a slant of wind. He opened his eyes and then slowly removed his hands away from his face. He looked at his arms and legs, but nothing had changed. He looked in front of him, expecting to see the woman and man in the strange clothes he had met today, but there were only trees to be seen in the distance.

He stood up, looking if there were some signs left of the couple, but they truly were gone like they've never had existed.

>>>

"Cole..."

"Cole...?"

Phoebe heard herself mumbling. She opened her eyes and looked into a bright blue sky. A couple of birds were chirping and she also heard the noise of someone who was mowing the grass.

Little by little she started to remember what happened. Everything what happened. Grams, her mother who passed away early, the cooking skills of Piper, the death of her sister Prue, the meeting with her new sister Paige...everything what happened till today, the day Cole came and threw the potion. She wondered why she still had all those memories, while the moment when Cole threw that potion he should have changed the past. It probably was a weird twist of faith or maybe nothing had changed.

Phoebe got up when she realized she was still laying on the ground. She removed some blades of grass out of her hair. She had the same clothes on as she had been wearing all this day. She looked around. She apparently was found again in someones garden. She walked out of the nicley looking garden and hoped no one had seen her. Then she recognized the surroundings, she was just a couple of blocks away from the manor.

She began to walk towards the manor and to her relief the manor still stood there on the same place as always, safe and solid. She rang the bell and waited eagerly to see her sisters again.

But an older woman who she never had seen before opened the door.

"...who...Piper... Paige," Phoebe stammered.

The woman looked surprised and she started to understand thereupon.

"You mean the Halliwels? They moved out two years ago."

_A/N: Siamese, you're going to have to wait a couple of chapters before Cole is going to use some other powers of Paige._


	5. Without the past

_Siamese- You review fast! Great to know you don't mind waiting and don't be scared I'll stop posting. As long as someone likes this story, I'll keep posting._

_PheobeColelovers- You're going to give me a cookie? Okay, I shall wait for it wagging :) ...Hm, somehow I get the feeling I'm starting to look more like my dog everyday._

_Phoebe Turner Halliwell- The best fic you've ever read?Whoa!didn't see that one coming. Cole dead? ... I'm not going to tell that... at least not yet now._

_Thanks to the people who are still reading this fic, because it's a complex story with a lot of twists. Just hang on, I think the best chapters are yet to come. This chapter became a bit more sisterly than I planned, but anyway...how would a world look like if Cole hadn't had his evil powers? Oh and before you get too confused please read the last sentence of this chapter... well, maybe you'll get even more confused after reading that... anyway, here's the chapter..._

Phoebe stared with disbelief at the old woman, who wanted to shut the door.

"Wait! Wait," Phoebe shrieked, while the words of the woman still echod in her head.

"Do you know where they're now?"

"I'm sorry."

Phoebe looked dissapointed at the woman who couldn't help her. The old lady shut the door and Phoebe could only stand helplessly in front of it. What was she supposed to do now? She went to a world where clearly a lot of things were changed. She had no idea where her sisters could be and Cole probably died a long time ago without his powers.

She looked at the door of the manor. The manor had become her home and it somehow made her feel safe, although demons attacked this place often and often. She touched the door to feel the wood, maybe this was the last time she would be here. But to her surprise she didn't feel wood, she felt a shock.

She saw a woman walking with a removal box, she was walking slowly, maybe because the box was heavy or there lay something precious in it, to an impatiently waiting man who was sitting in a van. "That really was the last one," She heard the woman say vaguely. Then the woman arrived at a new house. She looked happily at it and Phoebe could see her face clearly now. The woman was Paige.

She blinked her eyes and she was again looking at the door of the manor, beginning to realize what she just had seen. It had been a while since she had had a premonition. Phoebe had recognized the new house of Paige, it wasn't far away from the manor, so she decided to walk.

While she walked, she observed the neighbourhood to see if there was any difference. Nothing seemed to be changed. The same houses, same gardens, same cars and same people as far as Phoebe could remember. It was just an ordinary day for all those people, they would eat, go to work, come home and at the end of the day they would fall asleep, waiting for the next day to come. Phoebe longed for an ordinary day, an ordinary day would be good for a change.

She stood in front of the house she had seen in her premonition and wondered why Paige had moved. Although the door was standing wide open, she rang the bell. However there was no reaction. She looked through the window, but no one seemed to be home. She did see the old familiar furniture in the room. After a short time of hesitation she went into the house.

Walking from the corrider to the living room she heard a low noise. It was surprizingly dark in the house, so it was hard to see what hadcaused that noise. Suddenly she saw a heavy colossus coming towards her. If she would have ducked the thing most likely would have hit her anyway, so she gave it a powerful kick through which the thing broke and fell on pieces on the floor.

"Stop, it's Phoebe," She heard a voice in the distance say.

She looked at the pieces of the floor, it was glass. They had attacked her with a mirror? Phoebe narrowed her eyes to see the mysterious figures in the dark. She looked right in their brown eyes.

"Paige...Prue?" She asked amazed.

"Are you crazy? We could have killed you. Why didn't you use the back-door?"

"The back-door?" Phoebe asked muddled, she still couldn't believe Prue was actually here, just standing in the same room as her.

Phoebe walked towards Prue and gave her a big hug. When Phoebe saw the confusion in the eyes of her sisters, she realized she was acting crazy for her in this life. So she gave Paige a big hug as well to make it less akward.

"Phoebe, we have to be careful, what if Belthazor attacked us?" Prue asked not very impressed with Phoebe's strange behaviourand with a severe look on her face atPhoebe. The imprudence of her sister could sometimes truly drive her mad.

"Belthazor?"

Paige and Prue looked surprised at Phoebe.

"The demon who has been attacking us the last few weeks," Paige explained.

"No, it can't be Belthazor," Phoebe shook her head, thinking back at Cole.

Prue and Paige exchanged a worried look to each other. Then Paige shrugged her shoulders and looked back at Phoebe, who was trying to understand this world she landed in.

"Shax, what happened to Shax?" Phoebe suddenly said, when she remembered the demon who had killed Prue.

"Shax, what's that? A new kind of milkshake?" Paige asked.

Phoebe stared with disbelief to Paige and then to Prue who didn't seem to know either who Shax was. Maybe Shax didn't exist or maybe he just hadn't attacked them yet.

"Are you alright, Phoebe?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Phoebe answered Prue's question.

"Well, we'll better go to P3," Prue said, not completely convinced that Phoebe was alright. Meanwhile Paige walked to the corridor to get her coat.

"Oh, we're going to Piper?" Phoebe asked, wanting to see her absent other sister as well.

Prue stood still and looked at Phoebe. She was sure she had misunderstood the words of Phoebe. Her younger sister clearly had said something else than she had heard, Prue thought.

"Do you want to go to Piper?"

"Yes," Phoebe answered a bit uncertain, now Prue had asked this question.

"Okay, but we haven't got all day."

"Let's orb to it, I don't think there will be people right now," Paige said from out of the corridor, hearing the conversation.

While Prue and Phoebe just walked into the corridor to Paige, there came a shock on Prue's face after hearing Paige's words. Paige held her hand before her mouth, when she saw the look on Prue's face.

"I...I didn't mean to..." Paige stammered.

"Fine, we orb," Prue gave in reluctantly.

Phoebe didn't know what to think of what just had happened. It was for sure a lot of things had changed. She stood next to Paige, grabbed her hand and Prue held Paige's other hand. Then they orbed out of the dark house.

Fresh air, they were in the open air. The cold wind blew hard in their faces. ToPhoebe's astonishment they were at a graveyard. She saw the faces of Piper and Paige next to her, they both staredto a low spot in front of them with a sadnees in their eyes.

Phoebe looked in the same direction as her sisters. She let her eyes rest on the tomb-stonein front of her, reading the name she was affraid to read : Piper Halliwel.

"She died..."

She felt like she was stupid. Stupid to believe that all her three sister would be alive.

"But how..." Phoebe could hardly speak, tears were coming into her eyes. She knelt in front of the grave.

Her hands were lying on the tomb-stone and she felt a shock. The same shock she had felt by the manor.

She saw the attic of the manor. The door slammed open and Piper ran into the room heavily breathing. Piper glanced hastily through the Book of Shadows, while she sometimes looked up to the door, expecting to see someone. She reached out to her stomach and saw that her hand was covered with blood. She seemed to panic, she still hadn't found the right page in the book. A flaming light came towards her, although she moved away she felt the heat of the energy ball that had hit her. She fell on the floor and looked at the evil creature that had injured her. The demon was ready with a fire ball in his hands to attack again. Piper studied the face of her attacker accurately, she couldn't believe that this was her way to go. All she could think before she saw the fire coming to her and she closed her eyes for good was that she was going to be killed by Belthazor, who had seemed to be so harmless the first time she had seen him.

Anger filled Phoebe's heart, how could he have done such a thing?

"And Leo? Where's Leo?" Phoebe started to panic.

Paige and Prue were surprized by the question of their sister. What had gotten into her that she didn't know anything? She really wasn't fine at all.

"After Piper died he..." Paige began.

"...he lost his strength of will," Prue finished Paiges sentence and she looked hastily on her watch.

"You mean he died as well?"

"I really have to be in P3 now. Paige, take care of Phoebe, okay?" Prue said, while she gave a worried gaze at her sister.

Paige held Phoebe's hand and watched the tomb-stone of the sister she never had known, before they orbed back to their home. After a glass of water and some bites of a sandwich, Phoebe had somehow managed to calm down. She kept thinking that this wasn't her life, she was going to do everything she could to get out of here. Paige sat beside her in the kitchen.

"So now Prue is gone, when is Belthazor going to attack us next?" Paige asked curiously.

"How am I supposed to know?"

Paige rolled her eyes.

"Maybe because you're the witch with the premonitions."

"Yes, but I can't decide when I have a premonition about what I want to see."

Paige frowned her eyebrows and looked incredulously. She wondered if her sister was making a joke, but seeing her serious face Paige knew she wasn't.

"Yes, you can," Paige said.

Phoebe looked surprized at her younger sister. Paige gave a pervading gaze as return and was now wondering if Phoebe had fallen on her head and got amnesia. When Paige saw that Phoebe still had a questioning look on her face, she began to tell about last year.

"You've studied everything what's there to know about premonitions for one year."

Phoebe couldn't believe that she had done that willingly, but it did explain why she already had gotten two premonitions in the short period of time she was here.

"Why would I do that?" Phoebe asked, eagerly to know what kind of person she was in this world.

"Well, you had a lot of terrible dates for a long time and then you desperately wanted to know if you were ever going to find the love of your life so..."

"...I've studied premonitions for a year and now I can call a premonition everytime I want about everything I want," Phoebe completed the words of Paige.

"And did I see the love of my life in my premonitions?"

Paige shrugged her shoulders.

"You wouldn't tell. Are you sure you're alright?"

Just when Phoebe wanted to say something to reassure Paige she was fine, although she didn't feel fine at all, they heard a scream coming from the corridor. Paige and Phoebe ran to the corridor, seeing Prue... and Belthazor.

Paige reached out in the direction of Belthazor, there came blue sparkles out of her hands and to Phoebe's surprise the red demon stood still. Prue immediately ran to her sisters.

"You can freeze time?" Phoebe asked to Paige.

"Yes, what else should I do?"

This time it was Phoebe who shrugged her shoulders. Belthazor was slowly getting out of Paige's magic and was ready for a next attempt.

"Don't we have a spell we can use?" Phoebe asked her sisters.

"We're not going to use any spells," Prue screamed, the anger was clearly to be heard in her voice.

Phoebe looked at Prue like she was insane. They had been attacked by Belthazor for weeks now and they didn't have a spell or anything else to vanquish him? They had no plan at all. Everything that was magical seemed to be banned out of this house.

With spells or without spells she wasn't going to wait for her death, at least not without a fight. She jumped to the demon, hitting him on his chest.

Again a shock. She saw short images of innocent people screaming, looking scared at Belthazor. She saw images of him killing them. Then she saw Piper again on the attic, who looked hurt. And as last she saw other people, the most in dark places. When she saw that one of them was Shax, she knew that this were the demons he also had killed.

"Stop it," Phoebe said more to herself than to the demon. She didn't want to see more of the terrible things he had done.

Her smack against his chest didn't have an effect on him at all and now they were standing very close to each other. She looked with horror at him.

"Cole, what the hell have you done?" Phoebe yelled.

A burning flame appeared in the demon's hands. Phoebe looked in fear at the flame she had seen so many times before. He was going to kill her and there was nothing she could do. She saw a flash of black coming towards Belthazor. A moment later she realized that Prue had thrown the piano at the demon by using her telekinesis, when she saw Belthazor lying helplessly underneath the musical instrument. His dark red face began to change into a human form. She looked into his blue eyes.

"You're not Cole..."


	6. Ghostly courage

_Thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews! They really increase my inspiration to write more. I'm not going to ramble a whole story here, because you probably want to read some explanations. If you have any questions, just ask them and I'll answer them (if they aren't already going to be answered in the following chapters)_

"Cole?" Paige asked.

Phoebe ignored Paige and looked hard at the face of the transformed demon who wasn't who she had expected to be. The man under the piano gave a cry, showing his pain. Paige stepped back with a frightened expression on her face when she heard this sound. The demon kept silent for a moment, forgetting his pain and realizing his powers. He shimmered with a grin on his face. Prue looked disgusted at the spot where only a piano remained.

"He'll be back," Prue warned, putting the piano back in place.

Phoebe was still astonished by the unknown identity of the demon. She had been so sure it was Cole. But now that he wasn't, how could there be someone else who was Belthazor? She remembered Sikes who had imitated Belthazor, but this was different. This Belthazor looked exactly as the Belthazor Cole was, as opposed to the imitation of Sikes.

Another idea popped into her head. Maybe it was one of Cole's grandchildren or great-grandchildren. That could be a possibility. The image of Cole having a happily family with someone else besides her made her stomach turn. There was only way to find out, she had to summon Cole to find out if he really was dead in this world.

"Who's Cole?" Paige insisted now her question still hadn't been answered.

"Your demonic ex-brother-in-law you hate," Phoebe mumbled.

"Huh?"

"Nothing, I think... I have to summon someone. Where are the candles?"

Paige pointed to the left where a basement was. Prue gave an angry gaze at her younger sisters.

"We're not going to use our powers unless there's no other option," She exclaimed.

"But... " Phoebe protested. The resoluteness of Prue surprized her.

"Phoebe, we had this conversation before and we decided to... " Prue said and put her hands on the shoulders of Phoebe to make her words more powerful.

The touch of Prue's hands made Phoebe shake and before she knew it she landed in another premonition. She recognized herself and Prue. The words they were saying became little by little understandable. "It's my fault, Phoebe. You two are my responsibility and I failed to save Piper," She heard Prue say. She saw herself crushed sitting at the foot of the stairs with tears in her eyes. "We're moving as soon as possible. We can't stay here in this house where Piper... " Prue closed her eyes, unable to say the words aloud. "Useless magic, we can't even bring our sister back," Prue began to complain, throwing a table and a painting with her powers. All that Phoebe could do was nodding and letting her tears course down her cheeks.

"Do you understand?" Prue asked with a threatening tone in her voice.

Phoebe came out of her premonition, back to reality where Prue was standing in front of her. She looked at her older sister and she understood her behaviour. Prue had always felt like the protector of Piper and Phoebe. Prue had blamed herself and magic for Piper's death.

"No, it's something you decided. I'll use magic whenever I want," She yelled to Prue, getting lose from her grip.

Prue looked astonished and dissapointed at the same time. Paige was watching with her mouth open, not knowing what to do in this situation.

"If that's what you want, you're on your own," Prue stated calmly. She grabbed her coat and stormed out of their house.

Phoebe tried to ignore the feeling of guilt hurting her sister. She brought her attention back to her plan to summon Cole and walked to the basement. Phoebe brought her hand to hear forehead when she saw that the room was filled with removal-boxes. How was she going to find candles in here? It wasn't till Phoebe heard some noise behind her she noticed Paige had followed her, curious to see what her sister was up to.

"It's something I've got to do alone."

"Fine, I have better things to do anyway," Paige said before she left as a mocking child.

Phoebe sighed, getting both of her sisters mad wasn't an achievement she was proud of. A moment after Paige had left the basement, candles and the Book of Shadows flew out of a box. The leaves of the Books of Shadows turned over wildly until they stopped at the page to summon someone. Phoebe looked surprized at all the things she needed. She smiled, realizing grams was helpful in this world as well. After she had lit the candles and said the spell a vague figure appeared. Phoebe looked amazed at the spirit who didn't look much different than the boy she had seen this morning. His hair was a bit messier and he seemed to have grown at least 10 centimeters.

"You're a... child," She stammered.

The pale boy watched closely at the woman standing in front of him. Why would she summon him? She looked familiar to him like he had seen her before.

"I died when I was 14, I know, it sucks."

"It sucks?"

"Yeah... I learned some words from other children up here," The ghost of Cole said looking up for a moment.

"The demon here... Belthazor... you're supposed to be him, not someone else."

"Belthazor?"

"You know... red, evil man," Phoebe tried to explain.

"He is... was my brother."

"What?"

"He... eh kind of killed me," He said fast, hoping it would sound less horrible if the words quickly slipped away. You never knew with those mortals how much they could take. Some of them were already scared by thinking about their own death. To his relief he saw that the woman who summoned him was surprized, but didn't look like she wanted to scream and run away as fast as she could.

"But how can he be Belthazor?" Phoebe asked, absorbing all the unbelievable things she heard today.

"I don't know. That's just the way it always has been."

Phoebe kept silent for a moment to think. Did Cole have a real brother in her other life? She hadn't seen other children in the past when she had been there with Cole today.

"He's your older brother?" She asked.

"No, he is 8 years younger than me... it's kind of embarrasing he killed me."

She gave him a slight disquieting look. She had talked to ghosts more than once, but she always felt akward when they talked about their death. And the sentence 'it's kind of embarrasing he killed me' she never had heard before.

Phoebe thought back at the words Cole had said earlier this day. "They probably came for my powers... shimmered with my mother... killed my father." In this world where Cole didn't have powers the demons probably never had attacked him and his father wasn't killed. And in this world he had a brother who was 8 years younger. That would mean... that the parents of Cole in this life had gotten a second son who got the same powers as Cole used to have. It explained why there was another Belthazor here. Everything fell in his place.

"I've got to go back," Phoebe decided.

So much was changed in her life now Cole wasn't here. Everyone was so sad here. Piper and Leo were dead, they would never have children, Prue blamed herself for the death of Piper, Paige wanted to use magic now she found out she was a witch, but felt guilty after using her powers and then there was herself... she didn't know if she was a happy person in this life, probably not. Losing her sister and brother-in-law, seeing how unhappy her sisters were.

She had to go back to the moment when Cole had stripped his own powers. Back to her normal life, when Piper and Leo, although they argued a lot, were happy and Paige experimented with magic as much as she could. Back to being the Phoebe she knew she was, who was unhappy in love in her normal life as well. But it always would be better to have lost the love of your life than never even had seen him.

But how could she get back? What if she was stuck? What if she was destined to life in this world?

"Back to what? Maybe I can help you?" The young ghost asked, noticing the fear that had filled the eyes of the woman.

"I have to prevent a mistake... someone made a mistake," Phoebe explained, knowing that the ghost she was talking to was the one who had the mistake. How could Cole have ever thought it was the best for the both of them to erase their relation?

"Phoebe! Phoebe!" They heard someone screaming.

Paige came running and gasping for breath in the basement. She watched scared behind her to the door. She saw Cole and then gave a confused gaze at Phoebe. Paige got herself together from her confusion.

"They're here! They're here in this house!" Paige paniced.

"Calm down. Who's in the house?"

"Belthazor and... and a man, another demon! We're going to die!"

"We're not going to die," Phoebe said to reassure her frightened sister, although she wasn't sure about it.

The door swung open and Phoebe looked at the two demons who entered. She saw the face of Belthazor she was prepared for, but the other face... She walked back, away from the Source. Why were they together? In the normal world they never had attacked together, but there had Cole been both of them. Phoebe stepped further away from the demons and went though the ghost of Cole which gave her a shaking feeling.

She saw a dark cave. The seer and Cole were standing in the cave talking to each other. The seer was holding some kind of box in her hands. "And what happens to me after?" Cole asked. "The witches and I will banish the Hollow back to its crypt. You will return to normal." Cole wasn't convinced and looked suspicous at the seer. "How do I know this isn't one of the Source's trick? Or one of yours for that matter." " The Source has been corrupted by the Hollow. And is going to destroy us all. He can not be allowed to continue with this path of madness," The seer answered. "If I do this, what do you see then?" "A future for both sides." Cole walked across the room. "Is this the great thing you saw us doing together?" "Perhaps. However, you won't know unless the Source is stopped first. It's your only chance to save your love." Cole walked over to the seer who opened the box in her hands. A lot of black bee-like creatures flew into Cole through his eyes and mouth.

Another premonition, they just didn't seem to stop. They came in handy now, but she knew she would be irritated to have so many of them everyday.

But she didn't know what she actually just had seen. Cole was grown-up, so it had to be a premonition from the normal world? Maybe she was imaginering things, but all her other premonitions had been right. She had no time to think now the Source and Belthazor were in front of her.

Paige blew up the Source, but he immediately got put back together, just as he had done in the other world. Phoebe didn't know what to do. What could she do against them? She couldn't defeat them with only her kicks. Both of them here was something she only had expected to see in nightmares.

"The Book of Shadows... to fix your mistake," The ghost said.

Phoebe became aware of his words and grabbed the Book of Shadows to return. She turned the leaves as fast as she could. Paige stood helpless in the room without her powers. Phoebe saw fire balls coming towards her. There was nothing they could do. Phoebe closed her eyes and held her hands before her head to protect herself, although she knew it wouldn't be enough. She expected to be blown away, but when nothing happened she opened her eyes again. The ghost of Cole had somehow became untransparent, receiving the attack that was meant for her. He lay on the floor with his eyes open wide.

"Cole..." Phoebe said in asthonisment, distracted from her search in the Book of Shadows.

"Don't worry about me, lady... I already died once, I mean if my soul dies, it couldn't be much worse, right?"

The ghost looked curious at the woman who had summoned him. She had called him by his name. She knew him. She already had looked familiar to him the first time he had seen her. He didn't know why, but something about her was special. Special enough to give his soul for her life. And the way she looked at him, like she knew everything about him, like they had an unusual special connection.

"I know you... You're the woman who wouldn't throw that bottle at me," He smiled now he remembered where he had seen her before.

The tears came into her eyes, while she looked at his body that was becoming transparent again. He shut his eyes and he slowly vanished.

Paige screamed when the Source threw a fire ball at her, which made Phoebe aware again of the demons and Paige. Finally Phoebe found a spell to fix a mistake, she read it aloud, seeing the two demons coming to her and Paige who lay lifeless on the floor. The images of them started to spin round.

She felt she was getting lighter. A dizzy feeling came to her and then everything turned black.

_A/N: Wow, I didn't even make a cliffhanger this time! The premonition Phoebe had about the seer and Cole is a scene from **Charmed and Dangerous **and I don't own that._


	7. Witchy way out

_I'm officially one year a member of fanfiction today, so I'm updating all my stories I'm working on at the moment!_

_As always, thanks for the reviews! They really mean a lot to me:) This chapter is the longest one I've written so far... so enjoy..._

A couple of birds were flying in the sky that was filled with threatening, grey clouds. She blinked her eyes a lot of times right after each other, before she got used to the light of the area. Although the sky was darkblue, it was here a lot brighter than the basement where she had been a few minutes ago.

Phoebe still felt a little dizzy and all the things that happened were randomly flashing through her mind. Suddenly she remembered why she had come here and she looked round hoping to see herself or Cole. However she didn't see anyone. Had she used the wrong spell or did she go back to another mistake?

She heard voices speaking, the voices of her and Cole. That meant they had to be near her, Phoebe listened carefully where the voices came from. She suddenly realized she was standing by the back of Cole's old house. She walked around the house, seeing herself, Cole, a potion and the young Cole in the distance.

She sprinted as fast as she could to the three persons, when she saw Cole grabbing the potion out of the hands of herself.

"Stop," She screamed, but Cole already had thrown the potion.

Phoebe was almost there. She kept looking from the potion to the young boy who had opened his eyes after hearing her scream. Then Phoebe threw herself in front of Cole. The potion that was harmless for Phoebe broke in pieces after it had hit her on the shoulder.

Phoebe got up from the ground where she had fallen and immediately looked at Cole and herself, who to her relief still were standing there. They gave a confused gaze at her as return, which made the Phoebe from the other world aware it was weird for them to see another Phoebe. However she didn't have the time to explain everything.

"It didn't work, you have got to find another way out of here," Phoebe said, gasping for breath.

The Phoebe who came out of the other world, started to become transparant, because now they hadn't thrown the potion at the young Cole, she didn't exist. However she didn't fade away in nothing, she faded away in the other Phoebe so that the two Phoebes became one again. Phoebe felt a slight shiver now all the events and feelings the Phoebe of the other universe went through were in her mind as well.

She glared at the young Cole, who sat confused in the doorway. She knelt beside him and stroked his hair once. Something inside of her wanted to take the boy along, away from all the horrible events that were going to happen this day. But she couldn't do that, who knows how the future would change.

"We'd better go somewhere else to..." Cole said, wanting to talk about what just happened without being heard by his younger self.

Phoebe nodded.

"Be good," She whispered to the boy, before she got up.

Cole frowned his eyebrows and walked with Phoebe away from his younger self back into the forest.

"You know that isn't going to make any difference?" He asked Phoebe.

"It was worth a shot."

They were silent for a few minutes, while they kept walking. They both didn't really know where they were going. All the events that occured today were still whirling in Phoebe's head. It was hard to believe that so much happened in halve a day. Cole walked with the same look of confusion on his face. He truly would have thought the Charmed Ones would have a more pleasant life without him, but the Phoebe who went to the other world said it didn't work. He looked to Phoebe who walked beside him, she was busy with her own thoughts. It seemed like she wasn't sure about what happened, so he decided not to ask her anything.

"But how are we going to get back to the present?" Phoebe finally asked. The second time she broke the silence between them today.

"There are some witches here, they can help us."

Cole remembered a witch who lived nearby. He had fought with this witch once. Cole immediately tried to orb to the cabin of the witch, but his powers nor Phoebe's powers worked in this past.

"We'll just have to walk then...again," Cole said a little dissapointed.

He had been a demon for over a decay and he still was used to think he could shimmer. After he lost his powers as Belthazor he had gone for a walk, far away and then he had realized he couldn't shimmer back and had to walk the whole way back again. Next he became the source who could shimmer as well and after the Charmed Ones had killed him, he became even more powerful. Now he was human again and he still sometimes forgot that he couldn't shimmer. And today...today he had gotten the power to orb, which was probably even more strange than being an human. He never had gotten good powers before and somehow it made him feel good, something that he had tried to be for a couple of years.

Cole stopped walking when he noticed Phoebe wasn't walking next to him anymore. He looked behing him and saw Phoebe who was standing some metres behind him and gave him an indignant gaze. Cole walked to her, wondering what he had done wrong this time.

"You knew this all along? That there was a second option?" Phoebe asked.

"What?"

"That we also could look for a witch here instead of erasing our relation?"

Phoebe stared at Cole, hoping for a reasonable answer. He had said very fast that they could also get help from a witch, like he had known that all this time. But maybe she was wrong, maybe he just came up with it.

"Erasing our relation seemed like the best option," He answered to Phoebe's horror.

"I can't believe this," She muttered.

Not only the meaning of his words hurted her, but also how he said it with a cold tone of calmness. This wasn't Cole at all, at least not the Cole she knew. He was so incredibly calm and that annoyed her very much. He was so in peace with everything. That wasn't how it was supposed to be. He had to be a mere wreck without her. When she realized what her thoughts were, she became very disturbed of her selfish way of thinking.

"You don't give a freaking damn that you would have erased our whole past together?"

"Phoebe..."

"So our relation didn't mean anything? You just thought, oh, what the hell, we just throw it away?"

He couldn't believe she accused him of thinking their relationship didn't mean much. He was the one who changed his whole life to be with her and who knows how may times he had tried to get back together with her. The part of him who loved her, never went away, not even with a potion or after he had become the Source. If someone of them two regretted their relation it obviously had to be Phoebe and not him.

"I thought you'll be happy to ban me out of your life. That's all what you were trying to do after you vanquished me for the first time. Phoebe, who was the one who didn't even want to see or meet me again? I'm not a complete moron. That spell that you had written when we got in trouble by Argentus wasn't a spell to go back in time more than 100 years, it was a spell to go back in time for one day. You didn't want to see me alive again."

She looked dumbfounded at him, because he was right. _He knew_. All this time he had known what the meaning of the spell was she had written. He had even said it aloud with her, because she wanted to. She felt she had been a coldhearted bitch. To push away this feeling she let her anger blaze up, remembering what he had done.

"That's still not the same as erasing everything you did like it meant nothing."

"I didn't want to erase it, because it didn't mean anything to me. I wanted to erase it, because it meant everything to me. I've tried to forget you for so long now and I've still hadn't succeed. I think about you everyday, what you're doing, if you're happy without me. Do you know how hard it was to see how easily you moved on?"

"I d..."

"Do you think I was glad when I was alive again? I have to live every single day knowing that the woman I love doesn't love me anymore. I've been to hell...but this is way worse than any hell I can imagine."

He had mantained to stay calm for so long, but somehow she knew to get on his nerves, doing things he would never had expected. When he came back after he had been the Source and they vanquished him for the first time, he desperately had tried to restore the trust Phoebe had had in him. He thought they would come back together eventually, but they didn't. He thought they needed each other.

However after seeing an evil Phoebe in the parallel world he created, he had seen how he destroyed her. She was nothing like the Phoebe he knew, he loved. Now he was alive again, he had said to himself to stay away from Phoebe. She had to be with someone else, someone who could control his dark sides.

Although he hadn't seen her for weeks, his feelings for her staid the same. He would always love her. Today wasn't planned. Today he was in her presence the whole time. The only way to ignore his feelings for her was to be calm, but it wasn't in his character to be calm. And now he had blurted out his feelings for her, that wasn't what he had planned at all.

"Damn it."

He walked away from her, feeling stupid for not controlling his emotions.

Then it just happened, in the heat of the moment. She didn't know why, maybe because what he said, maybe because the way he said it, maybe his reaction after he said it or maybe because the combination of those three things together, but it had melted her heart.

Before she knew what she was doing, she ran towards Cole and grabbed him by his collar. She stood on tiptoe, pressed her body close to his and looked him in the eyes before their lips touched each other. After not longer than a second of amazement about what was happening, Cole answered her kiss fierily. Their kiss was tender and passionate like a thunderbolt and a rainbow were in the sky at the same time. Although the touch between their lips lasted long, they both felt the kiss was too short when it ended.

Phoebe let go of Cole and noticed she was trembling. She turned her head away from him, because she knew that if she was going to look to him now, she wouldn't be able to resist the craving of her body for more. She always wanted more after she kissed him.

Cole tried to look at Phoebe, but when she avoided his gaze he feared she regretted their kiss.

It had been a long while since they had kissed for the last time, but the passion was clearly still there. A passion that couldn't have been there if they didn't feel antyhing for each other.

Both in confusion of what happened they walked on. How did this happen? Had they just been argueing who thought their relation was more important? And mostly of all what did this kiss mean?

Phoebe thoughts went to the other universe she went to today, where Cole had given his soul for her. He didn't even know who she was and he had sacrificed himself for her. Awkwardly she remembered one sentence the spirit said in particular: _The book of Shadows... to fix your mistake_. Phoebe hadn't said the ghost that it was a mistake she made, she had said someone made a mistake. The ghost had assumed it was her mistake, while Phoebe meant the mistake of Cole throwing the potion. The sentence kept repeating itself in her head. _To fix your mistake. Your mistake._ Had she made a mistake by letting go of Cole?

To drive away this disturbing thought she remembered the premonition she had seen about The Seer and Cole. What did that mean? She was about to ask Cole what he knew, but they stopped in front of an wooden cabin.

"We're here," He said.

"You're sure she's a witch?" Phoebe asked to make sure the woman wouldn't think they were insane if they were going to say they were from the future.

"He is."

Phoebe looked a bit surprized at Cole, she had expected the witch to be a woman. She knocked on the door, wondering how the manly witch would look like.

A man with chubby red cheeks opened the door. His long white hair was striking, especially now it was combined with the long black clothes he was wearing. The man looked observing at Phoebe and Cole. They both were suddenly very aware of their clothes that weren't from this time.

"We're... " Phoebe stopped her sentence. Would it be a good idea to tell him right away?

"We're from the future and we need to go back," Cole said calmly.

The suspicous look on the man's face changed in a curious friendly smile after hearing Cole's words. He let them in his cabin, where it was small and dark. A lot of jars, in all kind of sizes, were noisily bubbling and some amulets, that were hanging on the ceiling, glimmered caused by a small stroke of light of the burning flames in the hearth. If someone would drop in, he could immediately see it was the house of a witch, but seeing the amount of dust and the cobwebs, there probably didn't come many visitors in this place.

The male witch listened very interested to everything Cole and Phoebe had to say. He would be more than happy to help them, but he hadn't the power to do such a thing alone. So he casted some kind of a spell to call on all the witches he knew, to come on over and help them. As they waited for the arrival of the other witches, the man with the white hair, named Sylvester, wanted to know everything about the future. As time passed by more and more witches arrived, some just knocked at the door, other orbed or came out of the chimney.

Sylvester started to explain how they were going to send the couple back to the future. One little witch with cherry red lips and curley dark blonde hair didn't seem to think the explanation of Sylvester was very useful, because she vaguely listened and paid more attention to Phoebe and Cole.

"Darling, are you sure this man hasn't got evil vains in..."

"He's good," Phoebe cut her off to her own surprise.

"Okay, if you say so," the dark blonde witch said dissapointed now Phoebe hadn't been shocked by her comment.

"I just hope we have enough power to do this," Sylvester said nervously as he gestured to the witches where everyone should stand.

The group of witches encircled Phoebe and Cole, so that the couple was in the centre. The witches started to hum something that sounded a lot like latin. For what seemed to be the thousand time today Phoebe felt dizzy and the surroundings in front of her became a blur.

>>>

Cole opened his eyes and saw they landed in a sinister alley. Phoebe walked in front of him out of the alley, while he followed her. Suddenly Phoebe stopped and Cole knocked into her. The collision between their body's made her glow inside.

They were in a large street where hundreds of people were walking or running. High skyscrapers towered above the restaurants, malls and shops they walked past. There was only a little piece of the blue sky that you could see.

"This can't be San Francisco, right?" Phoebe asked, when she didn't see anything familiar she knew of San Francisco.

"Excuse me, could you tell us where..." Cole tried to ask an old lady who walked past, but she ignored Cole completely.

Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, deeply sunk in their own thoughts.

"Hello!" They heard someone yelling.

Phoebe and Cole turned round and saw a little girl on the other side of the street looking at them with her big hazel eyes. She carried a school bag on her back. Her long brown hair fluttered wildly as she ran towards Phoebe and Cole.

"I was waving at you, didn't you see me? Why aren't you at your work? Why are you here?" The girl rambled, while she checked if her hair-slide of a butterfly still was in her hair.

Cole and Phoebe both tried to remember whether they had seen the girl somewhere else before, but this girl wasn't in one of their memories.

"Eh... do you know where we are?" Cole asked.

The girl raised her eyebrow, that wasn't a question she expected to hear. She gave a wondering gaze at Cole.

"Can't you remember, daddy?"

_A/N: They already went to the past and to another present... so I couldn't resist myself from sending them to the future as well. I hope you still are liking this story._

_I don't know why, but somehow I have problems with naming original characters I make up, so if you know a cool name (for a boy or a girl) that begins with a P, let me know and maybe I'll use it in the next chapter... _


	8. Magic of a family

Cole looked surprized at the girl and then he turned his head to Phoebe who shrugged her shoulders.

"Did you just call me daddy?" Cole asked.

The young lass narrowed her eyes and studied Phoebe and Cole accurately. She put her hands in her side and shook her head.

"Did you cast the _viginti anni _youth spell again?" She sighed.

"The what?"

"Hm... you do look younger."

"Younger?"

"Yeah, like you're in your late twenties or something."

Phoebe and Cole exchanged a confused look to each other, while the girl in front of them kept looking at them with a straight face. Behind the girl, between the skyscrapers there was a piece to be seen from the Golden Gate Bridge, which should mean they were in San Fransisco after all. After seeing that and remembering what the girl said, Phoebe started to realize something.

"We're from the past, I think," Phoebe said to the girl.

The girl slanted her head and she looked very deeply into the eyes of Cole and Phoebe. It felt like a warm breeze went through their bodies when she gazed at their eyes. Cole's daughter blinked her eyes and smiled.

"Sorry about lasering you, but you can't be careful enough with all those demons around here... uh... that's what you told me. You're really protective, you know." She said and pointed to Cole.

Phoebe tried not to laugh when she saw Cole's astonished look.

"I shall take you to my... our house, well... if you want of course," The girl suggested.

Phoebe and Cole agreed to come along with her. They followed her through the lively streets. Cole was curious about how his future would look like, especially now he had a daughter here. He wanted to ask her all kind of questions, but Phoebe beat him to it.

"So... uh, who is your mother?" Phoebe asked.

The girl suddenly stopped walking and looked surprized at Phoebe.

"You, of course," She said it like it was the only logical answer to that question. She couldn't imagine her parents being in love with nobody else than each other.

Although the girl looked like her and Phoebe knew that that could be an answer, she was amazed by this news. Phoebe looked at Cole who had a grin on his face. He always had wanted to have a child of Phoebe someday. Phoebe remembered how happy he had been the day he heard she was pregnant. Unfortunately her pregnancy didn't take long.

As they crossed the street, Cole asked the name of their daughter.

"Oh, I'm P..."

"Watch out!" Cole screamed when he saw a car was coming to them.

The nine year old child watched calmly to the car which was just a few metres away from bumping into them. With one simple move of her hand she pushed away the car without even touching it.

"You..." Phoebe gasped, not believing what the girl just had done.

The eyes of their daughter shone for joy, while the car stood still on the street. The driver of the car was confused, he looked nervously around to see what happened.

"Yeah, I used my powers. Aren't they the coolest or what?" The girl said.

"But those people saw you..."

Phoebe, Cole and their daughter were definitely in the centre of attention. The people, who first were sunk in their own thoughts, were looking at the three of them. The most of them were just as confused as the the car's driver. Others paniced and began to scream.

"Don't worry, I'll use some dust to erase their memory," The girl carelessly said to reassure Phoebe and Cole.

She grabbed a little bag out of her pocket. The white glittering grains that came out of the bag flew in every possible direction. When the grains reached a person, he or she became normal again. In a few seconds everyone did exactly the same thing as they did before the girl stopped the car. It seemed like it never had happened.

"You have to be careful with such dust. If you'll use too much..." Phoebe began, after she realized what her daughter had done.

"...you can erase too many memories from someone. I know, you've already said that to me a milion times. You're sure you're from the past?" The girl completed Phoebe's sentence.

Phoebe was dumbfounded the girl completed her sentence with the precise words she had wanted to say.

"Anyway, what I've tried to say earlier was that I'm Peyton," Peyton answered Cole's question from before.

They arrived by a huge flat, where they followed Peyton into the building.

"The 12th floor, right?" Cole asked, while he looked around.

"Yes," Peyton nodded.

"How did you know that?" Phoebe asked confused to Cole.

"Uh... this the appartement I live in at the moment... in the present."

Cole already had recognized the flat when he saw it in the distance. He rented the apartement on the 12th floor a couple of weeks ago, when he was alive and human again. However the flat was now obsoleted and the walls were rusty.

Cole walked to the elevator and pushed a button, but there didn't happen anything.

"Oh don't even try, that thing is always broken," Peyton said, while she already stood by the stairs.

"So you always walk to the 12th floor?"

They just arrived at the 4th floor and Phoebe couldn't believe anyone had to walk all those stairs everyday to get home.

"Uh... usually, but if one of my cousins is here, we orb. But I rarely see them actually," Peyton answered.

"Orb?"

Cole realized he had the power to orb as well and he held the hands of Phoebe and Peyton. As opposed to the past, his powers did work in the future and he orbed them to the 12th floor.

"Wow, I didn't know you had that power in the past!" Peyton said enthusiastically, while Phoebe was relieved they didn't have to walk anymore.

Peyton took a key out of the same trouser-pocket where the bag with grains was. She opened the door and gestured with her hands to Phoebe and Cole to go in.

"Welcome, make yourself at home... it's your home after all," Peyton smiled, while Cole and Phoebe stared their eyes out.

To Cole the apartement was surely different. He didn't have so much furniture in his apartement yet and here in the future the apartement was filled with stuff, from a bracket clock, many photo's in silver photoframes to a book-case. The only thing that was the same as in the apartement from the past was the big couch in the middle of the living room.

A young boy walked into the room, holding lesson books in his hands. His hair was black and a total mess. With his dark eyes he gave a short gaze to Phoebe and Cole.

"Hey, mum and dad from the past," He greeted them as he walked past.

Phoebe looked confused and Cole frowned his eyebrows. Peyton looked at the boy and sighed.

"This is Justin. He can look in the future," She explained,"... and unfortunately he's my brother as well."

"Yup, that would be me," Justin said. He dropped some of the books at the table.

"Couldn't you have told me our parents from the past were coming? Then I could have washed my hair, it's a total mess now," Peyton mocked, while she held a lock of her hair and looked sadly at it.

"What! Last week I told you all the birthday presents you were going to get this year and you immediatly ran crying to mum. You never wanted to hear anything anymore about the future and now I have to tell when our younger parents are coming? Gee... make up your mind..." Justin rolled his eyes.

Peyton shook her head. However the young boy already didn't look anymore at his sister, he brought his attention to his youthy parents who had listened to their conversation. Justin walked to Phoebe and Cole.

"When you're considering to have a second child, I strongly suggest you don't," Justin whispered to the couple from the past.

Although he whispered, his sister had exactly heard what he said. She opened of astonishment her mouth in the shape of a perfect o and gave him a deeply insulted gaze.

"That's so not fair, nerd!" Peyton yelled at him.

"Peanut-head!"

"No fighting!" They heard a voice say that was coming from another room.

Justin and Peyton both stopped shouting, although they didn't look very nicely to each other. It didn't take long before they found out whose voice it was, because a woman with long brown hair came into the living room.

"Oh... uh... hello?" The Phoebe from the future looked surprized at the two people who she didn't expect to be here in the room.

"Look, mummy. It's you and daddy from the past," Peyton smiled.

The older Phoebe gazed almost just as amazed to Phoebe and Cole as they gazed back at her. The future Phoebe wasn't changed much, she had some more wrinkles and her hair was a bit longer.

"Okay, I have to admit this is a bit strange..." The Phoebe from the future began to talk when she got over her suprizement, " but take a seat on the couch. Do you want to drink anything? I've just made coffee, but if you want..."

"Coffee would be fine," Phoebe answered, while she and Cole sat on the big couch.

Cole nodded as sign that he would be okay with coffee as well. Peyton, who had been watching at all of her parents with a smile on her face, stopped her mother from going to the kitchen.

"I'll get it, mummy," She said as she already left the room.

"Suck-up," Justin mumbled softly.

His mother maybe didn't hear him or maybe decided to ignore his comment, because she sat down on a chair and didn't look at Justin.

"So you probably must be here for a reason," She said, wondering why her past-self and husband were here."

"Uh..."

Phoebe and Cole didn't know what to say. They hadn't really thought about it. It was an accident they came here, they didn't intend to come here. Could there be a reason why they were send into the future?

"Ask anything you want to know and I'll..." The future Phoebe stopped her sentence, when Justin accidently let one of his lesson books fall on the floor.

"Justin, shouldn't you learn for your test tomorrow?"

"I don't have to go to school tomorrow," Justin said, while he hastily picked up the book from the floor.

"Why not?" His mother asked suspiciously.

"The school is going to burn down tonight," He answered.

"That excuse is not going to work this time, Justin."

"Yeah, yeah, I kind of already knew that," Justin said although he looked a bit dissapointed to his mother.

"Go study, would you?"

"Why would I? I already know I'm going to get an A."

"Well, you 'd better make it an A+ then," His mother gave an angrily look and Justin wandered off sighing with his books to his room.

"These powers are sometimes rather annoying than helpful," The future Phoebe smiled friendly to Cole and Phoebe, after Justin left the living room.

They heard a ratlle at the door. Something flashed behind the older Phoebe and ran to the door. It was a little girl, tinier than Peyton, with a ponytail. She quickly opened the door.

"Daddy!" She screamed when her father with a briefcase in his hands stepped into the room.

He looked very tired and satisfied at the same time. lifted the girl up from the floor and smiled to her. His wife got up from her chair and walked to them.

"Hi, hon," He said to her before he gave her a kiss on the lips.

"Say hi to ourselves," The Phoebe from the future said while she looked at Phoebe and Cole who were still sitting on the couch.

The future Cole greeted them with a confused look on his face, while he put down the girl on the floor again. His wife saw the faces of Phoebe and Cole looking at her husband and the little girl. She realized they didn't know who the girl was.

"Oh, this is Pearl. She is very shy, so she usually turns invisible when we get visitors," The future Phoebe explained.

"We have no idea how she got that power, but it sure was difficult to see where Phoebe was when she was pregnant," The Cole from the future smiled, while he dropped the briefcase on the table and sat next to his wife.

"Yeah, I got invisible all the time."

"You should have seen the look on the face of the doctors when she was in labour," The future Cole laughed.

"Oh, that wasn't funny at all! I flashed invisible by every birth pain. The doctor was even more hysterical than me," The future Phoebe said, although she laughed as well.

"Pearl, do you come and watch _Kill it before it dies _with me?" Peyton asked who got back from the kitchen with a salver full of cups.

"Hey dad! You're finally home," Peytons said when she noticed her father was in the room as well. She put the salver down on the table.

"_Kill it before it dies_?" Phoebe asked surprized.

It was the film she watched a thousand times. When Cole came back, he appeared in that film.

"Yeah, it's my favorite movie," Peyton smiled.

Pearl followed Peyton to her room, after she gave a curious gaze to Phoebe and Cole with her dark blue eyes.

"Do we have anymore children?" Cole asked, wondering whether there would appear more children out of the blue, like Pearl did.

"No, that was the whole family. Justin is 12 years old, Peyton is almost 10 and Pearl is 4. They can be a handful, especially when you have to work as well, but when it comes to the pinch they're real sweethearts."

"You're working as well?" Phoebe asked to her future-self.

"I'm still writing, giving advice to people, but I'll do it less often now."

"And I'm working by a district-court again," The future Cole added.

"And they underpay you," His wife said.

Before Cole and Phoebe could ask more questions, Justin came into the room with a skateboard in his hands. He looked from his mother to his father.

"Mum, dad, Peyton broke my skateboard!"

Justin showed his skateboard with a huge crack in the middle of it to his parents. Peyton walked right after Justin.

"It was an accident!" Peyton said a bit taken aback.

The Cole from the future took the skateboard in his hands and looked closely to it, although the crack wasn't hard to miss.

"I don't think it's fixable. We'll buy you a new one tomorrow, " He said, while he gave the skateboard back to his son.

"Justin, weren't you supposed to do your homework?" His mother asked him.

"Yeah... I'll go in a couple of seconds," Justin said, while he looked round.

Justin walked to Peyton who looked distrustfully at him. Justin narrowed his eyes, trying to remember something he had seen. He stood in front of Peyton and looked from the clock to the doorway. A red energy ball appeared in his left hand. Suddenly a man in black leather clothes shimmered in the room and stood in the doorway, throwing a knife at Peyton and Justin. Justin threw the energy ball to the man, through which the man vanquished and the knife disappeared.

"Ha, that's the 78th time I saved your butt against the 43th time you saved mine," Justin laughed at Peyton who rolled her eyes.

"Mummy? Daddy? Can you tell Justin it's not fair to count the number of times he saved me more from demons than I him, because he can look in the future?" Peyton sighed before she went to her room again.

"I'll go do my homework now... Oh and mum, don't forget to watch the chicken in the oven," Justin advised his mother when he too went back to his room with the broken skateboard.

"We try to give them such a normal life as possible, but it's hard when you often get attacked by demons," The future Phoebe said when she had seen the astonished faces of Phoebe and Cole.

"Especially if you're possesed by a nymph-like serial killer," The Cole from the future smiled evilly to his wife.

"That was before we married again and I'm still sorry I almost killed you."

"I know, honey," The future Cole put an arm around her.

The future Phoebe smiled to him and then brought her attention back to Phoebe and Cole.

"And a week after I finally was normal again he accidently turned into Hydrus, a green waterdemon with the teeth of a snake."

Phoebe and Cole looked confused by this thought. They wondered how Hydrus would look like.

"Hey, I didn't say it looked pretty," The future Phoebe laughed.

"Don't even get me started about the time you were a..." Her husband said.

"I don't think they... we want to hear that story," The future Phoebe interrupted him quickly. She obviously didn't want her husband to tell that embarassing narrative again.

For the first time there was a moment of silence.

"We have to get back to the present... past... uh, you know what I mean," Phoebe broke the silence.

"You'll have to get to the manor for that, I think there are tons of potions there to go back in time," The future Cole gave as a solution.

"There are potions for almost everything now. If you'll get the wrong one you may shrink or get large ears," His wife added.

"Then we'll go the manor," Cole said.

"You should be careful, Piper and Paige are there as well."

Cole and Phoebe looked not understanding to theirselves from the future.

"They're evil," The future Phoebe warned.

_A/N: Sorry if you didn't like Peyton and Justin fighting so much, - I personally thought it was cute - but I'll make that up to you anyways in chapter 9. That chapter is my favorite chapter of this whole story, although I haven't finished it yet._

_I know I asked for a boy's name with a P, but after I posted I realized the boys in the Halliwell family don't necessarily get to have a name that begins with a P. So I named the boy Justin, after my little nephew who's very sweet and has the same hairdo as Julian McMahon. Besides the name Justin looks a bit like Julian._

_Loz - Well, as you can see I've named the girl Peyton. I like that name very much. Thanks for suggesting it._

_sehar & mcgirl - Thanks for saying the story is good. :)_

_Phoebe Turner Halliwell - Pearl, that's a cool name! I liked the name Paris as well... but that was before I heard of Paris Hilton (No offense to Paris Hilton-fans) Oh and your pen name definitely rocks! I just wish Phoebe still had that name in Charmed._

_TrueLoveLivesForever - Oh, don't apologise for not knowing a good name with a P, I didn't know one either. ;) Yup, some of the witches came through the chimney. _

_angeleyes - Wow, you gave a lot of names. Thank you for that! I thought Peyton was the best name as well._

_Barb6 - What they're doing in the future? Well, they actually didn't do much in this chapter, but in the next chapter -as you'll already expected- they'll go to the manor, seeing some other personages from the future._

_ethereal girl & OhThoseEyes - I actually really doubted whether I would make the girl a child of Phoebe as well, but because Phoebe and Cole are already seperated from each other in the most of this story and for so long in the TV show, I wanted to write a chapter were they were happily together._

_Thank you all for reviewing!_


	9. Vanishing

_TrueLoveLivesForever - Nice you guessed how they were going to react. That must mean I didn't write them out of character. This isn't my favorite chapter of the story anymore, because I changed very much in the coming chapters. My favorite chapter is now7 or 10 actually._

_ColePhoebe4eva - Hey Loz, cool you registered. Yup, Phoebe isn't the evil one of the family for a change. :)_

_Phoebe Turner Halliwell - Thanks for saying I'm a great writer. That really means a lot to me. Well, Cole & Phoebe (from the past/present) are going to kiss again, but not in this chapter yet. _

_mandymoore1 - Thanks for your review._

_Barb6 - That was just the reaction I was hoping for. I loved writing about Phoebe and Cole being happy together and having a family. I'm glad you loved their family._

_You people did like the fights between Peyton and Justin. :D I'm still making it up now though, because I said so in last chapter._

_I wanted to post this chapter sooner, but I changed this chapter a lot from what I actually planned at first. But I think it's definitely for the better. _

_I wanted a lot too happen in one chapter, but it became one very long chapter, so I decided to split that one chapter in two. And here's the first part of it. The second part I haven't finished yet (... else I would have posted it as well.) _

"Evil?"

"Evil is just relative. Everyone decides for oneself what's good or evil. If you decide something is evil you reject it, when something is good you accept it," Peyton interrupted them.

She overheard their conversation as she walked to the living room.

"Sweetie, they tried to kill us several times. I think you can call them evil then," The future Phoebe said to her daughter with a sadness in her voice.

Phoebe still wasn't over the shock of hearing her sisters were evil.

"But... how can they be evil?" She asked.

The future Phoebe sat uncomfortably on the couch. She didn't like to think about her sisters, talking about them was something she liked to avoid. After years of trying to make her sisters good again and failing so many times, she gave up. Nowadays she pretended her sisters didn't exist and sometimes she would even forget about them... for a brief moment.

The future Cole saw his wife struggling to say something, so he began to talk for her.

"Argentus turned them evil."

Cole and Phoebe were a bit surprized by this news. They wouldn't have thought the demon they saw this morning could be so strong to affect their whole live.

"So that's why we're here... we only have to vanquish him in the present and we're done," Phoebe smiled, she wouldn't have thought it was going to be so easy.

The couple from the future looked to each other and Phoebe didn't know what to think of it. Had she said something wrong? Cole noticed the bit shocked expression on their future-selves' faces as well, which gave him an omnious feeling. The future couple restored their faces soon back to normal.

"That must be the reason why you're here," Cole from the future stated calmly.

Peyton followed their conversation and now there was a silence she suddenly realized why she came here in the first place.

"Oh, what I wanted to say was that in the kitchen..."

The future Phoebe jumped up from the couch.

"No! My chicken!" She yelled, while she ran to the kitchen.

They all looked at her. The old Cole brought his attention back to their conversation.

"If you're going to vanquish Argentus, I shall take you to the manor."

"I can orb," Cole said.

"That's not going to work. The manor is protected from good magic."

The Phoebe from the future came dissapointed back from the kitchen. Her chicken obviously didn't make it.

"Don't worry about it. I'll get some food on my way back," Her husband reassured her.

"You're going to the manor?" she asked.

"Yes, if that's okay with you..."

The future Phoebe looked hard into the eyes of her man before she nodded. She kissed him. The three of them left the apartement. Just as Cole wanted to orb them downstairs, the door of the apartement opened. It was Peyton.

She grabbed something out of her pocket and laid it into the hand of her father who didn't know what to expect.

"I kind of broke Justin's skateboard and... well he looked very sad then. And I know we don't have much money, so... well... I thought you could use my pocket-money for a new skateboard," Peyton said.

Her father smiled to her and gave the money back to her.

"That isn't necessary."

Peyton kept looking at her father. She hesitated a moment before she accepted the money she had given to him. She watched her father, Phoebe and Cole as they orbed. After looking at the money in her hand, she put it back in her pocket. She opened the door to the apartement again, back to her family.

>>>

A young man, about 18 years old, welcomed them into his room. They arrived to this students' club after a walk. The young man had brown hair and hadn't even been so surprized to see them. His room was a total mess, which wasn't very different from the other student rooms here.

"This is Chris," Cole from the future introduced them, "... and Chris, this is me and Phoebe from the past."

"Nice to meet you."

"So you're time-traveling, how does that feel like?" Chris asked curiously.

When Cole wanted to answer something, his future-self interrupted him. Cole from the future knew they hadn't much time to stay here. If someone would see them and recognize the ressemblance between them, they would get suspicous. Besides it was getting late and if Cole and Phoebe were going to the manor, it would be very dangerous for them to be there in the middle of the night. Around that point of time there would be the most demons in the manor.

Cole asked for the key of the manor and Chris gave it after he found it lying under a couple of books. He didn't ask why they needed the key. He didn't use it much anyway, seeing his parents wasn't something he liked to do. They wanted him to kill people so they could spread the power of their family. But he couldn't do that, as a consequence they banned him out of their lives.

"Why does he have a key of the manor?" Phoebe asked.

Cole and Chris exchanged a wondering look to each other. How much could they tell?

"...you'll find out in the future," Chris decided to say.

"We have to go. Sorry for the quick visit, Chris," Cole apologized.

"You're welcome anytime you want, unc... uh... Cole."

Cole from the future walked fast with Phoebe and Cole outside. The manor wasn't far away from the students' club. They stopped by the back-door of the manor. It was time for the Cole from the future to say goodbye.

"Promise you make sure that they don't see you. They're very powerful and will kill you in a blink of an eye," He warned them.

He handed them the key over."Now you can go into the manor. Cole, can I talk to you for a moment?"

Phoebe and Cole looked surprized to each other, before Cole walked away from her to his future-self.

Something changed in the way he looked. There was nothing left from the way he had smiled to his children and wife. He looked serious now. From a happy, tired father he changed into a sad man. But he accepted it. This was the way it was going to be. The Cole from the future gave a potion to Cole.

"You're going to need this if you want to vanquish Argentus. It took me years to make this and then when I wanted to use it... Phoebe got pregnant of Justin... she forbade it... But it's going to be for the best... There's no turning back after you'll use it."

Cole looked confused to the potion in his hands.

"You'll understand... sooner than you want."

With these last words the Cole from the future left, back to his home and family.

"What was that all about?" Phoebe asked when Cole returned to her.

"I'm not sure," Cole answered honestly, while he felt the potion in his jacket pressing against his chest.

Cole and Phoebe sneaked into the manor, which had changed a lot, there were statues and paintings glittering in all the rooms, many of them were made of gold. There wasn't a familiar decoration or furniture to be seen that had been in this house when Phoebe still had lived here. Her sisters sure were much wealthier than they were in this time. It looked like they could afford everything they wanted.

They heard laughing and talking coming out the living room. The room they had to walk past to get to the attic. Luckily there wasn't much light in the manor. In a glimpse Phoebe saw her two sisters talking to some demons. She almost hadn't recognized them, their appearances changed a lot. They wore all kinds of jewellery, which contrasted to their black outfits.

Cole took hold of Phoebe's hand to get her along. They both walked silently upstairs. The first floor was just as out of all recognition as the ground-floor. They finally arrived at the attic.

It was amazing to see the thousand of potions, spells and books stored in this chamber. The Book of Shadows was in the centre of the room. However the book wasn't changed at all. Phoebe went to a rack with potions, while Cole inspected a closet full of spells.

They were looking for a way to get back to the present and something to destroy Argentus. How on earth were they're going to find the right tools between all this stuff?

Phoebe grabbed a potion out of the rack and showed it to Cole. It was the potion she used for Argentus this morning, which went right through him. She still didn't know how that had been possible.

She only had read the page of Argentus quickly this morning, because she was distracted by Cole's presence and Piper already read it before her. Phoebe decided to go to the Book of Shadows. Carefully she touched it's front side. She thought the book would jump away from her, but nothing happened. The book was still good. She turned the leaves till she found the right page.

"Argentus... a silver demon... shows up by distrust... by attacking him with magical powers, those magical powers go away..." Phoebe read softly aloud.

She read nothing new. The same spell and potion were still in the book. No remarks or warnings. She read the page again and again, but she didn't find anything.

Cole had been searching in the closet with the spells, but he had just as bad luck as Phoebe. He found spells for preventing rain, turning a frog into a horse and killing witches with a sneeze, which were all useless.

He went to another closet. This closet was full of potions. He soon noticed all the potions in this closet were to go to another time. They were sorted by data, from 1500 million before Christ till 30000 million after Christ. However it was still hard to find the right potion quickly between all the others.

After Phoebe had read the page for the hundreth time she suddenly thought of something. It was actually really stupid she hadn't thought about that before, but maybe there was nothing written there. She flipped over the page and to her relief that she found something there was a little sentence written.

"That can't be possible," Phoebe stared at the page.

"What?" Cole asked, while he just grabbed the potions they needed out of the closet.

"It says here that if you want to vanquish Argentus..."

The door swung open and they stood face to face with a man with blond curls. His surprizement quickly changed into a grin. He laughed unpleasuntly. He didn't expect to see his aunt and uncle here, but now they were here, he was going to make the best out of it. Torturing people was something he loved to do.

The man was about to throw a fire ball as Cole threw one of the two potions to go back in time to Phoebe.

"Door!" Cole screamed.

With the powers he got from Paige, Cole made the door swung to right in front of the nose of Wyatt. Cole looked to Phoebe who catched the potion and now ripped the page about Argentus off the Book of Shadows.

Wyatt stood astonished at the other side of the door that hit him. He hadn't born in mind his uncle would have magical powers. He blasted the door into million of a pieces, seeing the two people in the room drinking a potion. He threw fire balls at them, but they dissapeared before they could get hit, leaving Wyatt angrily alone in the room.

"What the hell..." He mumbled.

>>>

"I've studied real hard, really."Cole nodded as a sign he believed his 12-year old son, against his better judgement. It was a fact that his son didn't study at all, why would he? He already know what the questions and answers were in advantance. Cole would never say it aloud, but if he had those powers he would do the precise same thing.

Teachers called Justin a wonderchild and Justin loved all those laudations. Children envied him for always getting an A+ and some teachers were desperated to prove that Justin was a fraud, but they never found evidence.

"Good night," Cole said to his son.

"Wait," Justin said from out of his bed, while Cole already wanted to step out of the room.

"Dad?"

He looked worried to his son and saw the big dark eyes which were filled with fear.

"Is there something wrong?" Cole asked walking back to his child who doubted a bit. He couldn't tell it to his mother, because he didn't want to worry his mother if it wasn't necessary. A quality he inherited from his father. He had to tell his fears to someone, he had tell his father.

"When I... I wanted to know what was going to happen tomorrow, but... I don't see anything, it's all black. Is there going to happen something terrible? Should I have done something to stop..."

"No, there's nothing going to happen. You're probably just a little bit sick, then your powers go off," Cole reassured him.

The boy smiled at his father. It was disturbing to see how easily the boy believed the lie. It was a good thing Justin couldn't read thoughts.

"Good, because I don't want anything to change, not even Peyton... but don't tell her I said that."

"I won't."

Cole hugged his son, knowing that it maybe was the last time he could do this. He held him very tight, but after a few seconds he had to let go of his child, before he would get suspicous.

"I love you," Cole said.

"Love you too."

The father tucked his son in and the son closed his eyes, free from care what was going to happen tomorrow. Cole kept sitting with his son for a while, seeing how peacefully he fell a sleep. Then he stood up and saw his wife looking at him who was standing in the doorway. He walked towards her with a smile on his face, she still looked beautiful after all those years. In his eyes she would always be beautiful.

She already had wished Justin goodnight before Cole did. She had seen something was troubling his mind, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Now she had seen how Cole somehow had managed to reassure their child. He was a better father than she ever could have imagined. He looked so sweet when he was with the children. In her eyes he always was sweet, even after knowing all his dark sides.

She closed the door to the bedroom of Justin. Beside the room of Justin there were the rooms of Peyton and Pearl who already went to bed earlier. It gave Cole and Phoebe a feeling of bliss, knowing that their children were safely sleeping behind those doors.

Cole put his arms around her and saw her neck slowly fading away. Phoebe felt her toes and legs getting very light. She looked at Cole. His body also dissapeared slowly.

"I guess we've changed the past," Phoebe said Cole's mind aloud.

They didn't need to say anything to each other anymore. They knew each other, they knew the other loved them, they had no regrets. In the last seconds they had their lips touched each other one more time before they vanished forever.

_A/N:I know it was a bit mysterious, but maybe you can already correctly guess what's in the potion the future Cole gave to Cole. Let me know what you thought of this chapter... _


	10. What fate desires

_ColePhoebe4eva - There isn't going to be a confrontation between Phoebe & Cole and evil Piper and Paige, because Phoebe & Cole already went back to the past/present. Sorry about that._

_angel eyes - Yes, Cole a good dad :) I just think Cole would be one of the best fathers ever. Aw... in Charmed he was so incredibly happy when he heard Phoebe was pregnant and that he bought that big fluffy bear plus decorated that room... it still melts my heart thinking about that. _

_TrueLoveLivesForever - Phoebe is indeed always the evil one. They definitely could have made one of the other sisters evil for a few episodes. Sometimes it seemed only Phoebe & Cole had an evil side inside of them. But on the other hand I have to admit it's one of the reasons why I love Phoebe & Cole so much, because they weren't perfect. I loved Cole for having an evil past and I loved Phoebe for not always doing the good thing._

_Phoebe Turner Halliwell - I could have written Cole & Phoebe feeling really uncomfortable, but I just thought they still had to be more shocked about everything they saw and heard in the future at that moment than feeling uncomfortable... Oh, I know how you feel about Phoebe& Cole kissing. Everytime I see or read Phoebe & Cole kissing, there just automatically appears a smile on my face. :) _

_Thanks for reviewing. Wow, I sure ramble a lot. _

_This was definitely the hardest chapter to write so far. I changed it.. like a million times. But here it finally is..._

The images of the evil Wyatt changed into a darkness. Phoebe and Cole looked at the new surroundings they landed in, but this time they were in a place they both knew very well. The manor. The familiar manor. However it was very dark in the hall on the first floor.

"Why is it night?" Phoebe whispered to Cole.

She hoped they didn't end up in another epoch. Cole looked at the clock and saw the time. It was one minute past twelve.

"The day just started."

"That means we have some hours left before you come here with that woman," Phoebe realized.

Phoebe and Cole were both frightened at the slamming of a door downstairs. They both knew they couldn't stay here. If one of the Halliwell sisters would see them, they would probably freak out.

"I guess it's finally time to invite you to my new apartement," Cole said as he reached out his hand to Phoebe, but she turned away.

"Wait, let me first get a pyjama and some clean clothes," Phoebe whispered.

She walked to her bedroom and Cole followed her. Phoebe searched in her closet, while Cole looked round. It had been a while ago since he was here for the last time. He glanced at her bed that was empty.

"You're the one who slammed the door?" He asked.

Phoebe just wanted to say something, when they heard someone walking on the stairs. Cole looked in the dark to Phoebe who hastily began to search her pyjama, while the footfalls became louder. The footfalls stopped in front of the door and Phoebe still wasn't done with finding her stuff. Cole walked to Phoebe who was startled by the sound of the door. In an impulse she pulled Cole into the closet with her and closed the closet-doors.

They held their breaths as the other person in the room flopped down on the bed. As silent as she could Phoebe put some of her clothes back on their place. She finally found one of her old pyjama's. Cole looked through a cleft in the closet to the person on the bed. It was Phoebe, she had her face buried in a pillow.

"You were crying?" Cole asked Phoebe in the closet.

Phoebe watched herself as well through another cleft. The sight of herself crying embarassed her. Why had she been so stubborn of wanting to get some of her stuff? She didn't want to see this. She didn't want Cole to see this.

"Yes... I had a fight with one of my collegues."

Phoebe held Cole's hand, hoping he would orb them immediately to his apartement. But he still stared at the Phoebe on the bed. Softly, but clearly they heard the sobbing Phoebe mumble one word. _Cole. _Cole looked shocked at the Phoebe in the closet, who avoided his gaze. She felt busted. Cole glimpsed once more to the other Phoebe, before he orbed them to his apartement.

>>>

It was very empty. Especially after seeing how ful the apartement had been in the future. Phoebe walked from room to room in the apartement, wondering by each room how it looked like in the future.

"This apartement definitely needs a woman's touch," Phoebe said. She didn't want Cole to have the chance to talk about what they just had seen.

"You mean your touch?"

"Hey, you can't deny I did a pretty good job decorating our future house.

" They arrived in Cole's bedroom, which was nothing more than that. There only stood a bed in the room.

"You can sleep in my bed and I will sleep on the couch."

Phoebe wanted to protest, but she suddenly realized how hungry and tired she was. She hadn't eaten much today. Cole was making the bed ready for Phoebe, after he said her she could look for some food in the kitchen.

"Whoa!"

"What? Something wrong?" Cole asked, as he quickly went to the kitchen as well after Phoebe's shriek.

"Your fridge looks like it's from a woman on a diet," Phoebe said, while she looked at the almost empty refridgerator. Cole stood behind her and was relieved she screamed because of his refridgerator, where only butter and a rotten pizza were. He had seen enough demons for one day, seeing uneatable things wasn't a real concern.

"I think my fridge looks like it's from a man who too often forgets to go to the supermarket."

"You're probably right. You were never so good in preparing your meals yourself," Phoebe smiled to him and she threw the pizza in the waste bucket.

"Says the woman who burnt her chicken in the future, even though her own son warned her," Cole laughed.

Phoebe discovered the fruitbowl with apples and grabbed some apples out of it. It was the only thing she saw they could eat now.

"You'd better watch your words, Cole Turner, or else I'm not going to pare this apple for you," She playfully threatened him, while she found a little knife in a drawer.

"I can't risk that, I'll better go making your bed."

Cole walked back to his bedroom and Phoebe shook her head with a smile on her face before she brought her attention back to the apple.

She looked shocked at the peel of the apple. She hadn't paid attention to how she was paring the apple and now she saw the apple-peel was in the shape of a C. A perfect C. Just like the appel-peel in the 17th century. The shape of the pare showed the first character of the name of her true love. It had been a C.

After Cole made the bed and Phoebe pared a lot of apples they sat down on the couch with apples and glasses water. They finally had some time to relax. Her thoughts went back to the question that had been in her head for a long time.

"Why didn't you tell me you became the Source, because it was the only way to save me?"

He was a bit surprized by this question that came out of the blue. He never would have thought she would find out. He wouldn't have thought she found that information important.

"Phoebe, I was still evil. I lied to you. It doesn't matter."

Phoebe looked astonished at Cole now she realized what he just had admitted. So it was true what she had seen in her premonition. He became the Source to save her.

"It matters to me."

Phoebe took a bite of the apple, while she thought back at what happened to them in the end.

"We did it all wrong, Cole."

She didn't know where to begin. So much happened between them.

"After you returned from the wasteland, we should have talked, really talked about all that happened... but I pushed you away as hard as I could, I couldn't take it. It was already too hard to think about you. You know I became a mermaid and I admitted I still loved you, but that didn't take away my pain. After a while I just got so tired of being hurt... I thought that if I pretended to everyone including myself I was over you..." There was a catch in Phoebe's voice.

"... it would become true," Cole finished her sentence. He understood what she meant. Those last weeks after they vanquished him and he was human again, he had tried the same thing.

Phoebe's thoughts went back to the weeks after she signed their divorce papers.

"I didn't know how to live without you. I didn't trust myself anymore. I became paranoia, all the time I thought you were going to attack, that you were going to hurt me again... you said me not to lose myself, but I did."

"You? I was the one who went insane. I desperately tried everything to take away my pain, I wanted you to kill me, I tried to make you evil again, I made a parallel universe..."

"... in which I vanquished you. Paige told me. But that wasn't really us, Cole. You were taken over by your demonic powers again and me and Piper never got over Prue's death," Phoebe said sadly.

"But no matter how demonic I got, I never stopped loving you," Cole added, wanting to say something positive about the horrible times they went through.

Frankly, it was the only thing he could remember clearly of the time after they vanquished him as the Source. That he loved her and she rejected him. The feeling of being an invincible demon who tried to kill himself and others was something what seemed to be from another planet now. He wasn't that demon anymore.

"I never stopped loving you either," Phoebe smiled.

She placed her hand under his chin, so that they looked each other right in the eyes. They kissed each other fondly. It was her way to show she had forgiven him and would give him another chance. She always had been better at show than tell. Cole looked admiring at Phoebe after their kiss was finished. He loved the way she kissed. He loved everything about her.

"Do you want another apple?" She asked Cole who nodded.

Phoebe got up from the couch and headed to the kitchen.

"How are we going to vanquish that Argentus? It has got to be a joke only Belthazor can vanquish him. I mean it's insane only one demon can kill another. Besides Belthazor doesn't exist anymore," she said from out of the kitchen.

Cole choked on a piece of apple. He coughed a couple of times before the piece came back out of his throat.

"It says in the Book only Belthazor can vanquish him?" he asked.

"Yes, it stood on the other side of the page. You first need the spell and the potion to make Argentus visible for attacks and then Belthazor has to use his complete power to..." Phoebe stopped talking, when she walked back to the living room with apples and saw Cole's face,"... something wrong?"

Cole took a draught of water. He understood it now... sooner than he wanted. He had to broach the subject he would have liked to avoid, but he couldn't avoid it. He could pretend he didn't know and a small part of his heart really wanted him to, but he wasn't going to hide anything more from Phoebe. This time it was going to be different. He had secrets when he was with Phoebe in the past. A future with secrets wasn't going to work as well. The potion in his pocket would become a shadow following them their whole life. There came a glow of sadness in his eyes before he started to speak again.

"We can revive Belthazor."

Phoebe looked not understanding to Cole.

Cole brought the whole day back into his head. The pain he saw in her eyes this morning when he returned in the manor, the sadness in her eyes in the future when she told them she had no contact with her sisters, the tears in her eyes this night, because of him. Maybe it was for the best they couldn't be together. He hurted her so many times. He was even hurting her now.

He pulled out the potion and placed it on the table.

"My future-self gave it to me. It's a potion to make me Belthazor again. He said there was no turning back after I'll use it," Cole explained.

Phoebe looked to the potion on the table. She let the words of Cole sink in for a moment, thinking about what the consequences of the potion were.

"So you'll become half Belthazor again... that means you can also surpress him again after we'll vanquish Argentus," She concluded as she sat on the couch next to Cole again.

"The Book of Shadows says Belthazor has to use his complete power. I can only use that power if I'm fully Belthazor again and if I do that... I can't become myself anymore."

Phoebe shook her head. She didn't want to hear it. Not now. Not now she thought they would have a chance. It was only for a brief moment she felt happy and now her heart was about to be shattered again.

"Well... then we just have to find another way to vanquish Argentus," Phoebe said.

"Phoebe, I don't think there's..."

"I mean... maybe there's another Belthazor somewhere or... else we give that potion to someone else who..." She wasn't going to accept this, there had to be some way out of this.

"Whom do you want to give that potion? An innocent person? We can't do t..."

"We give it to another demon and we give him a reward if he..." Phoebe quickly interrupted him. She knew that what she was saying didn't make sense, but there had to be another solution. There just had to be. She wasn't going to lose him again.

"You really think a demon is going to kill Argentus for us? You know you can't trust a demon. We're giving a demon way too much power if we're turning him in Belthazor... Besides I think the potion only works on me," Cole said. He didn't exactly know how he had to react to Phoebe firing useless options to him, but he couldn't give her false hope.

"But... there has to be a spell or a potion to turn you back."

She tried to ignore the desperate tone in her voice. It was like she was falling down from a steeple-high skyscraper, desperately trying to somehow get a hold of the building before she would hit the ground and be crushed.

"Our future-selves tried for who knows how many years to save your sisters. If there was a way to do that..."

"... they already would have find it," Phoebe didn't know anymore. She hit the ground. How much longer would it take before she would be fully crushed?

They were silent for a moment, staring at the potion in front of them that looked so small and harmless. There was no way back after they would use it.

"We know now what we'll have to do tomorrow," Cole decided.

"_I_ don't."

She fought the thoughts in her mind. She wasn't going to say goodbye to him, she just couldn't. She didn't had to let go of the love of her life again. It wasn't going to happen. She wasn't going to let this happen.

Cole saw she was struggling, that she tried to deny what was going to happen today. The news he would never be with her had struck him as well. But seeing Phoebe's reaction he realized he couldn't give in to his own feelings of hurt. He had to be strong tonight for the both of them. They couldn't break down together. He had to bring her back to reason.

"Phoebe, you never will be completely happy without your sisters."

"I'm never going to be completely happy without you either."

Tears started to appear in her eyes. She didn't want this to be true. Had she to choose again between him and her sisters?

"Why can't I have both?" She asked.

Cole didn't know what to answer, because there wasn't a right answer to that question. She finally faced the truth. For once she'd wished she could be selfish, that Cole wouldn't have to become Belthazor. That she just could live with him, like she had seen in the future. But she couldn't, not at the expense of her sisters. She couldn't let them turn evil.

"This is not fair. They can't do this to us again. They just... can't."

Fate didn't want them to have a happy ending. There were a lot of things they could fight, but fate wasn't one of those things. The tears began to course down her cheeks. Cole put her arm around her, she sat on his lap and buried her face in his chest. She heard his heart beating, it was beating very fast.

"I can't do this again. I can't take this, Cole... How can you even be fine with this?" Phoebe asked him since he somehow had remained to stay calm.

"I'm not fine with it," Cole said honestly. If there was anything he could do to prevent this, he would have.

"But at least I get a death where you don't hate me. That's much more than I ever could ask for."

Phoebe looked up to see his eyes.

"Death?"

He tried to avoid Phoebe's gaze. He thought she already had realized this, but now she asked him this, she apparently hadn't.

"You'll have to vanquish me after I killed Argentus."

Phoebe stared unbelieving at him. They would lose each other, he would become evil and she would stay good. If that wasn't already enough to process for her, he now wanted her to kill him as well?

"You can't ask that from me," she turned her head away.

It hurted Cole to tell these things to her, but she had to know what to do today. He realized she maybe would let Belthazor live, because it was going to be the only thing left of him.

"There isn't going to be a part of me left in him this time. I'll be already fully gone when I become Belthazor. You'll have to stop him from killing anymore innocent people. You have to promise me you'll vanquish him before he has the chance to do that, Phoebe."

Cole knew it was a hard thing to ask, but they had no choice. He had to convince her to do the right thing. He knew she was strong enough to do this.

"I... I promise," Phoebe said.

Cole tried to comfort her the best he could. He deseperately wanted to do something to take her pain away. She didn't deserve to be so hurt, maybe he did, but she didn't. She had to get on with her life without him. He had to give her some hope for the future.

"You'll find someone else... someone who's good, someone you can trust, someone who'll always be there for you."

"That sounds like the man you were in the future," Phoebe resisted the thought of being with someone else. She didn't want to hear it.

"Don't do this, Phoebe. Please don't make this harder than it already is."

Phoebe saw the hurt in his eyes when he said those words. For the first time this night she finally realized how broken he was, just as broken as she was. She realized that how harder she struggled the more she was hurting him. She didn't want to think or talk anymore. She only wanted him.

She let her hand slip under his shirt. His body shook for a moment by the touch of her hand. With her hand she pressed his body down, so that they were lying now instead of sitting. Cole felt his body, that had been tense all day, slowly becoming relaxed as Phoebe still was stroking his chest. She looked longingly at him.

Seeing her gaze, Cole kissed Phoebe wildly on the instant, while his hands unzipped her top. He didn't know if this was something they should be doing now, but he didn't care. If this was going to be their last night together, it'd better be one night that would last in their memories.

>>>

It took a few seconds before she realized she was in Cole's appartement. That she was lying on the couch with Cole. He had his arms wrapped around her. It felt safe to be lying in his hands.

She must have fallen asleep very soon, which wasn't so surprizing. This day that just started had been an emotional roller coaster for her. Like it wasn't already shocking enough Cole returned today, going to the past to another universe to the future had really drained the energy out of her.

She looked at Cole, who was deeply asleep. He must have been very tired as well. She remembered the first time they met. She thought he was an angel, especially after seeing him in the court room. And it was just what she was thinking now, he looked like an angel to her.

Ironically enough, she was the one who lied as first. She had to lie to him, because she couldn't revail she and her sisters were ass-kicking witches. Of course she had lied to people more than once about her witch-being, but she had felt really bad when she lied to him, while she usually didn't have many problems with lying to people she didn't know very well.

Now she was here with him, but not for long. There were no secrets anymore between them, which could break them apart. There was only destiny.

Last night was amazing. The physical attrection between them was something she couldn't deny. It had been there from the very first day she met him. But there was much more than only that between them.

But they weren't meant to be. They never could be together. Fate won. They lost. Again.

With her hand Phoebe softly stroked Cole's face.

"Why do I have to love you so much, Cole?" Phoebe whispered, before she slowly got out of his grip.

_Sad chapter, I know. To make it even worse, I'm going to tell you now that next chapter is going to be the final chapter. And sorry, but I'm not going to spoil one single bit about what's going to happen..._


	11. Good or evil

_It took me a bit longer than a week this time to update, but that's because I made this chapter extra long. So here's the final chap!_

_Before you read I just wanted to say thanks to all you people who reviewed this story. Every review I got made me so happy and made me wanting to write more. I don't think I would have finished this story without your support, so thank you! You reviewers rock! _

_So, the main question now is how I will end this fic. Well, __if you hadn't noticed already, I adore unexpected twists in a story. And this is the most complex story I've written so far, so expect a lot of explanations to come... Enjoy (hopefully)!_

"We've already got all the potions and spells."

"I know... it's just..." Phoebe turned over the leaves of the Book of Shadows. She knew she wasn't going to find anything, but there was no harm in looking.

She and Cole were in the kitchen of the manor. This morning they talked the most of the time about how they were going to vanquish Argentus. They barely had eaten something as breakfast and thereupon they had waited near the manor, seeing Cole and the red-haired woman coming in the manor, Phoebe's furious reaction, Argentus appearing, Paige trying to save the woman, Argentus shimmering with them and finally themselves with Piper orbing out of the manor.

They prepared an almost finished vanquishing potion for Belthazor and found a spell to take away the orbing powers Cole got. He couldn't become fully Belthazor if he had a strong good power inside of him.

Phoebe hadn't seen anything helpfull in the Book of Shadows, while she already looked it through a couple of times. She stared at the page of Argentus again, nothing new there. She flipped over the page, expecting to see the line about Belthazor, but to her surprise the page was completely blank.

She looked a bit surprized to Cole who stood a few metres away from her, staring at nothing. Had she imagined what stood in the Book of Shadows in the future? She realized she ripped off that page out of the book and still had it. She pulled out the ball of paper out of her trouser-pocket.

She laid the page from the future next to the other page in the Book of Shadows. The line about Belthazor did stand on the future page. Slowly the same line suddenly appeared on the present page as well. Phoebe stared confused to the two pages. Why did that sentence about Belthazor appear today in the Book?

"We should go," Cole interrupted Phoebe's thoughts.

He had given her some minutes to look in the Book of the Shadows and somehow he had hoped she would find a miraculous solution, but they were running out of time. It had taken them some time to make the potion and who knows what Argentus already had done with Piper and Paige.

Phoebe walked to Cole and held him tight, while he orbed them to Argentus' hideout. They were again in the dark room with the rotten furniture. The spot where Piper had lain unconscious was empty.

Phoebe and Cole narrowed their eyes to see something in the darkness. Cole saw a person moving in the distance and brought it to Phoebe's attention as well. Phoebe pointed at another corner of the room where Argentus was.

They started to say the spell to make Argentus visible for the potion, through which Argentus noticed them as well. He threw a couple of electric energy balls at them. While dodging Argentus' attacks and hiding behind different pieces of furniture, they finally finished the spell.

Argentus still looked the same though and Cole and Phoebe exchanged a gaze to each other, wondering whether the spell had worked. Phoebe threw the potion at Argentus, because it was the only way to find out. This time the potion didn't go through the demon like before.

Argentus was startled by the potion that hit him and didn't pay attention to Phoebe and Cole for a moment. Cole took advantage of this occasion, he went to Phoebe and orbed to the hall, away from the room and Argentus.

"Well... this is it," Cole whispered.

"You were a great Charmed One," She said.

Cole gave Phoebe a slight smile before she said the spell to take away his powers. The powers of Paige left Cole's body, searching for another soul. They didn't know where Paige's powers would go to, but it would only be for a short moment. Because after they vanquished Argentus the powers would come back to Paige.

Argentus and the other person in the room still hadn't noticed their presence. Cole untwisted the lid of the potion that was meant to make him Belthazor again before Phoebe took a hold of his hand. With the knife in her other hand she cut in Cole's hand, just like they planned.

"Don't lose yourself again, Phoebe. I want you to be happy."

Phoebe looked sadly up to Cole who didn't want this to happen either. They kissed each other one more time before Cole completely took in the potion to become Belthazor again.

"I love you, Cole. I will always love you," Phoebe said, even though she was sure he already knew that.

She saw his lips moving, saying without using his voice _I love you too _before he slowly morphed into Belthazor.

The normal color of his skin changed into red. She still held his hand, in which she cut. His hand grew and became red as well. Phoebe quickly let the blood of the wound in his hand drip into the potion. She couldn't vanquish Belthazor if there wasn't a piece of Belthazor's flesh in the potion.

A door in the hall suddenly fell down. A woman with brown hair stood in the hall now as well, looking to Phoebe and Belthazor. It was Piper. Her eyes were completely grey without pupils. She was possessed by Argentus.

Phoebe let go of Belthazor's hand and put the vanquishing potion in her trouser pocket. Piper began to throw electric energy, the same power as Argentus had. Phoebe ducked just in time and looked at Belthazor, but he apparently already left the hall, because she didn't see him anymore. Piper stood nearby and wanted to attack again.

"Sorry, Piper," Phoebe apologized before she kicked her sister in the stomach.

However Piper didn't seem to be hurt of the kick. She fired another electric beam to Phoebe, which Phoebe failed to dodge. Phoebe flew through the air because of the beam and landed hard against a wall. Her shoulder hurted a lot, but she had no time to think about that, because Piper was coming towards her.

Suddenly Piper collapsed and lay on the floor. Phoebe slowly got up from her position and walked to Piper. Piper's eyes were closed. Phoebe went to another room and saw Paige and the woman with the red hair lying on the floor as well.

She walked into the darkness, seeing the shade of someone in the distance. It didn't take long before she looked in the dark eyes of Belthazor. He stood near a black spot on the floor. He vanquished Argentus.

They stared a few seconds in each other's eyes. She knew he was waiting for her to vanquish him. Phoebe let her hand slip in her trouser-pocket and felt the potion, but she didn't take it out.

She knew what Cole said to her, that there was nothing left of him in Belthazor this time. But she also knew he lied. The part of his that loved her would never go away. There wasn't one potion to vanquish that.

She just couldn't vanquish him now. It was too soon. Belthazor was the only tangible thing left of Cole. By letting him live, it was the only mainstay their relation wasn't done yet. She eventually had to kill him, she would kill him before he would kill anymore innocent people. She owed him that.

Belthazor shimmered out of the room and Phoebe kept staring at the place where he had been until she heard voices behind her.

"What happened?" Paige asked, rubbing her head, because she had a headache.

"Something evil," Phoebe mumbled.

Paige looked confused to Phoebe, while Piper and the red-haired woman came to Phoebe as well.

"Let's get out of here," Paige said, looking to the muffy room before she orbed them to the manor.

>>>

"I'm Sophie, a witch. I get attacked by demons very often, but you should know what's that like. I mean _you_ are the Charmed Ones," the red-haired woman said.

She, Piper, Paige and Phoebe were in the living room of the manor.

Phoebe heard the words they were saying, but the words didn't get through her. She was numb. How could anyone still be talking so carefree? How could those people still have hope in the future?

Sophie smiled friendly to Phoebe in a glimpse. Phoebe looked astonished back at her. She couldn't imagine she would smile again someday.

She closed her eyes. Maybe she should go to her room and cry, but she didn't. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to stop the tears if she started to cry.

She had imagined this morning how she was going to feel at this moment. She would have thought she was going to be overwhelmed with emotions, that her emotions would take over her. But there was no feeling in her. Something died in her. She was hollow.

Her soul had been too hurt too feel anything. She didn't want anything anymore.

She lost so many people in her life. She already lost _him_ twice before. Losing him for the third time had been too much. Too much someone could ever ask of her.

This third time was different. The first two times he died, she could blame him for becoming the Source, for lying to her, for betraying her. She sometimes could even convince herself he deserved to die, that she was better of without him. But now she knew the truth, he became the Source for her, only to save her.

He was the only one who would do anything for her. He sacrified himself, in the past, present and the future. Why wasn't it enough? Why had he to turn in a demon again? Why didn't he deserve to be good after everything he tried?

There was a thin line between good and evil. Since when had it become good killing the one you love and since when had it become evil wanting to be with the one you love?

Why didn't they deserve to be with each other? They could have been happily together. They had seen it in the future.

She saw his eyes again. His blue eyes turning black. The next time she would see them again, it would be for the last time.

"Phoebe, are you alright? You look very pale," Piper asked worried.

Phoebe was started out of her thoughts by Piper's question. She gave a weak nod to Piper that she was alright, although she wasn't.

"What did happen to Cole actually?" Paige wondered.

Phoebe had already feared for the questions to come. She really didn't want to talk about all what happened today, especially not now Sophie was here in the room too.

"He... he became evil again," Phoebe stammered a bit and she looked at Piper and Paige to see how they were going to react.

Phoebe had somehow thought her sisters would have expected that answer. Piper and Paige didn't trust Cole at all after he became the Source, Paige already didn't trust Cole after she found out he was a half demon. So Phoebe expected them to say something bad about Cole, that it would figure, that Cole would always be evil, but it wasn't one of her sisters who reacted as first.

"So our plan was all for nothing?" Sophie asked.

Phoebe looked surprized from her sisters, Paige, who looked shocked and Piper, who looked confused, to Sophie, who realized she said something she shouldn't have said.

"Plan? What plan?" Phoebe asked.

"Don't look at me. I don't know anything," Piper answered.

"It's nothing," Paige mumbled, while she gave an irritated gaze to Sophie.

However Piper and Phoebe kept staring at Paige for an explanation. For a moment Paige tried to think of a good excuse, but this time she didn't know anymore. Besides she already got tired of all those lies the last four weeks. And because of Sophie's comment it was too late now to keep it a secret.

"Promise you're not going to be mad?" Paige asked carefully.

"Paige! What's going on?"

Paige sighed, especially since she had no guarantee of no angry sisters. She had already imagined how her sisters were going to react if the truth would come out and it never was a very peaceful conversation in her imagination.

"You know, you were right, Phoebe. It was indeed a trick Cole came here with Sophie, but it wasn't a trick of Cole's, it was mine."

Phoebe stared unbelieving to her younger sister.

"I already knew Sophie before she came here. I met her a while ago when she tried to vanquish the same demon as me."

Phoebe and Piper looked still confused to Paige. What was she talking about?

"This morning when she came here... She wasn't really wounded and there wasn't a real demon who attacked her. She had a small gall, which Leo could heal. I just used a spell to make the wound look worse. And Cole only saw the so-called demon in a glimpse, because else he probably would have known I magically made him. It was all an act."

"What? Why would you do that?" Piper asked, not believing what she heard.

"To bring Cole here."

Piper and Phoebe looked at Paige, wondering whether Paige was the one who was insane or they were.

"Before you're going to yell... let's give me you some more reasons to... I'm the one who brought Cole back after we vanquished him," Paige confessed, while she narrowed her eyes a bit, because she was afraid of how her sisters were going to react.

"You did what!" Piper yelled.

"But you hate Cole," Phoebe said, she didn't understand one thing of what Paige just said. It didn't make any sense. Of all people she would have thought Paige would be the last person to bring Cole back.

"Yes, but.."

"So you thought let's bring him back, because you wanted to have someone in your life you hate?" Phoebe asked sarcastically.

"No, it was an accident I brought him back... I didn't mean to. I was actually trying the opposite thing. After we vanquished him, I was sure it was for good, but then Piper said it seemed far too easy and I told Piper she shouldn't think like that... but actually after a while I began to doubt as well... Do you remember when we all had those nightmares?"

Piper and Phoebe nodded. Phoebe had thought the person who wanted to kill her in her dream was Cole. But it turned out to be herself, she thought she didn't deserve to move on.

"Well... after you said what your dream meant, I just wanted to make sure Cole wasn't going to come back, so that you really could move on. So I began to search for Cole, because I wanted to know if he was truly vanquished this time."

"And was he?" Piper asked, while she still wasn't quite over the shock what Paige just told.

"I found out he was in a loveless void as a punishment, but I was so stubborn of wanting to know whether he would ever have the chance to come out of it again, that I used a spell which went completely wrong and then..." Paige paused.

"... Cole was here again," Phoebe added. Her thoughts went back to four weeks ago. Paige knew all this time Cole was back and Phoebe nor Piper hadn't noticed a thing about her.

"I didn't know what to do after that. I didn't know if he was still an invincible demon. I didn't know if he knew I was the one who brought him back. So I ran away from him... And I didn't want to tell you... about my mistake..." Paige explained.

Paige sighed again. She tried so hard to be a good witch, especially since Prue had been that. Such a mistake as this, was something Prue never would have made. Paige had considered it to tell her sisters, but the thought of dissapointing her sisters scared her more than an invincible Cole.

The memory of the last time she had a mistake like this was still fresh. She had stripped the powers of Cole, but the powers went to another demon. Which brought them in trouble and she had apologized more than a 100 times for that. She didn't want to go through that again.

Paige continued with her explanation.

"I searched for Cole again, because I wanted to vanquish him. I found out where he was and I followed him to see what he was up to, but he catched me out after a few days. We talked... yelled actually... and he said he wasn't planning on something evil, that he wasn't a demon anymore. But of course I didn't believe him... and I kind of attacked him several times after that with potions and spells to find something demonic in him that I could vanquish."

For the first time Paige looked Piper and Phoebe in the eyes, while she told this story. She wondered what her sisters were thinking now.

"Then one day Leo had seen Cole on the market and that scared the hell out of me. I thought Cole maybe told Leo about me... that I brought him back or that I knew he was back again... but to my relief he had told Leo he was in hell and suddenly alive again."

Piper tried to remember the moment when Paige found out Leo had seen Cole. Paige had been shocked, but Piper had thought that was only a natural reaction after hearing Cole returned.

"Hell just isn't anymore what it used to be?" Piper remembered Paige's comment, after Leo said Cole told him he returned from hell.

Paige rolled her eyes. That was about the only thing she had said aloud of what she really was thinking at that moment. The last time they vanquished Cole, he landed up in waste-land and this time he ended up in a loveless void. Hell was definitely different this time.

"So when I asked you whether we should tell Phoebe..." Piper said.

Paige remembered that moment very well. It was the first time she really had thought about the reaction of Phoebe if Phoebe would know Cole was alive again, without knowing her youngest sister had something to do with it.

Paige actually had doubted then to tell everything to Piper, but she decided to keep her secret. Now there still was a chance to do that. And the fewer people who knew about Cole, the fewer chance her mistake would come out. She wished Leo hadn't been so stupid to have met Cole.

"... I decided to convince you not to tell Phoebe," Paige completed Piper's sentence, " But you still doubted about telling Phoebe, because you don't like to have secrets for your family. I guessed it only would be a matter of time before Cole's name would be mentioned again, and you would wanted to know how he possibly could return... so I went to Cole again to make sure he..."

"... would keep his mouth closed?" Phoebe asked.

"Uh... yeah, actually at that time I still didn't know if he knew I was the one who brought him back. Well, it turned out he really didn't know I did that, but... me asking him about his return made him suspicous... and he was already suspicous, because I had found out he was alive so soon and the weeks before I was the one throwing all those potions at him... so then he did figure I had something to do with it. But he promised me he wouldn't tell anyone about my mistake and already knowing he returned some weeks ago."

"Wait, this morning in the living room... that was the actual reason why you said to Cole and Leo not to whisper about you either?" Piper asked, remembering that strange comment of Paige.

"Yes, I actually said that to Cole... As a reminder," Paige confessed.

Phoebe tried to summarize everything Paige just said in her mind. Paige brought Cole back by mistake, Paige tried to vanquish Cole, Leo had met Cole, because of that Piper heard Cole returned and doubted to tell her, Paige convinced Piper not to tell, Cole promised Paige not to tell anyone about her mistake.

"It still doesn't explain why you set up this whole thing with Sophie," Phoebe said confused.

"Well, Cole only wanted to make that promise to me on the condition that I would answer his question in complete honesty."

"His question? A question about what?" Phoebe asked.

"Come on, Phoebe. What do you think? It was about you of course. I don't know what you've ever done to him, but any fool can see you mean the world to him. Even I know that," Paige rolled her eyes.

Phoebe looked a bit surprized to Paige. She hadn't ever expected Paige to say something like that.

"The several times I saw Cole after I brought him back... he wanted to know whether you were happy without him. That was the only thing he just kept wondering about all the time. Each time he asked me that I told him you moved on easily, you were over him and it was obvious you didn't love him anymore."

Phoebe felt her heart break again. She didn't even want to imagine how Cole must have felt hearing that.

"So that last time when I said I would answer one question of his in complete honesty, he simply asked me if you were happy."

"And what exactly did you say?" Phoebe asked.

"Uh... my exact words? I said 'Yes, I think so', because I honestly did think that then. I mean you said yourself you were over him. I thought Cole was the only one who wasn't over your relation yet..."

"And now you don't?"

"Well, I left Cole after giving that answer, but that question he asked made me think... It just kept repeating itself in my head. I convinced myself it was nonsense to think you weren't happy, that you weren't over Cole, but the next morning..."

"What the next morning?" Phoebe said curiously. She couldn't remember she had said or done something that showed she wasn't over Cole.

"I found you sleeping in the kitchen next to your lap top. It reminded me of what Cole did after I brought him back. Cole who obviously weren't over you."

"What did he do?"

"He desperately searched for a job."

Phoebe and Piper stared a bit confused to Paige.

"You both tried to escape. You completely buried yourself in your work. When I had a new potion I wanted to throw at him, I usually found him at his office. The most of the time he slept there, you know. That morning I realized you slept here at the kitchen table with your lap top many times before."

Phoebe realized Cole probably had slept at the office last night as well. She hadn't even wondered why Cole hadn't been in his apartement last night, when they had been there.

"Then I thought about all those dates you had after Cole, they were all hopeless... you didn't give one of those men a real chance," Paige stopped for a moment with talking, she would have thought Phoebe would contradict her now, but her older sister didn't.

"And last night... you completely flipped when I wanted to have a serious talk about Cole, you just stormed off to the manor. That was the final prove for me to know you weren't over him..." Paige explained, " Everything happens for a reason, right? So... I thought that that maybe was the reason why I brought Cole back and why Cole bumped into Leo at a market... maybe fate wanted him back in your live, so that you both could find closure."

"Closure?"

"Yeah, you killing him wasn't a real healthy way to end a relationship. Besides I knew Cole wasn't evil anymore... I mean I tried every single way to find evil in him that I could vanquish, but I didn't find anything. And he promised me not to tell anyone about my mistake. What was the harm in bringing you together?"

"Why did you come up with such a complicated plan to bring him here then?" Piper asked Paige, looking at Sophie for a moment.

"Because of all my lies... I already agreed with Piper and Leo upon not telling Phoebe about Cole, I already said Cole a million times Phoebe was happy without him and Phoebe already got hysterical when I wanted to talk about Cole... So I had to come up with a situation in which Phoebe would get less distrustful of Cole... An innocent seemed the best option," Paige explained.

"Now I think about it... you weren't that suspicous when he got here with Sophie," Piper noticed.

"And you were the one who suggested to let Leo heal Sophie," Phoebe added.

"And Argentus? You planned Argentus as well?" Piper asked.

"Argentus?"

"The name of the silver demon," Piper explained to Paige, who shook her head.

"No, Argentus shows up by distrust..." Phoebe remembered what she read in the Book of Shadows.

"So he came here... because of the distrust between us and Cole. Me and Piper didn't trust Cole to be good" Phoebe realized," it appeared in the Book of Shadows that Cole had to become Belthazor to defeat Argentus, and that's what Cole did. He became Belthazor to save your lives."

Piper and Paige were a bit surprized by this information. Cole saving them from becoming evil, that wasn't something that happened everyday.

"And Cole is still Belthazor now? Even after he defeated Argentus?" Paige asked.

Phoebe nodded. She actually had hoped he would become Cole again. Sometimes after they vanquished a demon, all the damage the demon made dissapeared as well, but not this time.

"You said it _appeared_ in the Book that Cole had to become Belthazor to vanquish him? That's strange," Piper said.

"Yes, it appeared today... after Argentus came here and had the three of you under his power..."

"So you can say Argentus made Cole become exactly the thing we distrusted him for. Cole became evil again," Piper concluded.

Phoebe thought about Piper's comment and the fact that today the solution of Cole becoming Belthazor to vanquish Argentus appeared today in the Book of Shadows.

"Do you think that the solution to vanquish Argentus is different everytime? That when Argentus senses distrust somewhere, he goes away if the distrust comes true?" Phoebe asked.

"Yes... because if what you distrusted comes true, the distrust goes away," Sophie answered.

The Halliwell sisters looked a bit confused to the red-haired witch who hadn't said much before.

"Uh... for example... a woman thinks her husband cheats on her, she distrusts him. One day she finds him in bed with another woman, then she knows he indeed cheats on her. So she doesn't have to distrust him anymore for that, because she knows it's already true. Then her distrust changes into anger or hate or whatever," Sophie tried to explain.

"But it's not fair. We distrusted Cole for something what he wasn't was. Why does he have to end up like this?" Phoebe sighed. If she didn't feel bad enough already before, she felt even worse now she knew it was her distrust that made him evil.

"Maybe he doesn't have to..." Paige mumbled.

Phoebe stared curiously at Paige. Did she just hear correctly what Paige said? Was there still some hope for Cole?

"Maybe... just maybe... if we took away what caused Argentus to come here, Belthazor becomes Cole again. If your distrust in him makes him evil, maybe your trust in him to be good can make him good again... does that make any sense?"

"But I already trust him to be good now," Phoebe said.

"Yes, but Argentus showed up, because of my distrust as well. I didn't trust Cole... I mean I didn't until I heard all this," Piper realized.

Phoebe hesitated. If this was the solution to solve everything, shouldn't her future-self have thought about that? However Phoebe realized her future-self probably thought her sisters would never trust Cole to be good... especially not Paige. But her future-self didn't know about Paige being the one bringing Cole back and throwing every possible potion at Cole to find evil in him. Her future-self didn't know Paige had set this whole thing up with Sophie.

"So... now all our distrust is gone... Belthazor already became Cole again?" Phoebe asked.

"There's only one way to find out..."

>>>

"Don't make me kill you again, Cole," Phoebe screamed, while she ran away from an energy ball.

She ran to Cole's bedroom in his apartement to hide. Piper and Paige were waiting for her here, since Phoebe wanted to see Cole back again as first, but she didn't see Cole when she arrived in his apartement. She saw Belthazor.

"Damn it. Why is he still Belthazor?" Phoebe gasped.

"Maybe I was wrong and it doesn't work like this," Paige said.

"Or maybe one of you still doesn't trust him," Phoebe snapped.

Belthazor entered the bedroom, seeing the three Halliwell sisters. He threw more energy balls.

"Energy ball," Paige yelled.

Paige threw the energy ball in her hands back at Belthazor, which hit him and he fell hurt on the ground. Phoebe looked sadly at him and pulled out the vanquishing potion out of her trouser-pocket.

"Wait! There was another person in the room when Argentus appeared, someone who didn't trust Cole as well," Piper stopped Phoebe. Phoebe stared not understanding to Piper.

"Leo!" Piper began to shout and Phoebe started to shout with her.

After some seconds Leo orbed into the room. He looked confused to the surroundings, especially after he saw Belthazor lying on the floor with a wound.

"You need to trust Cole," Piper ordered him.

"What?"

"I know this sounds insane, but you have to trust Cole didn't come with evil intentions to the manor this morning, that Cole can be good," Piper explained, while Belthazor tried to stand up again.

Piper gave a short gaze to Phoebe. She didn't want to see her sister get hurt again, but she also knew Leo couldn't trust Cole from one second to the other. However Piper had no time now to tell Leo the whole story about what happened since Belthazor wanted to attack again.

"Please, trust me on this one. I trust Cole to be good. If you trust me, trust Cole as well," Piper used the love between her and Leo as a way to save Phoebe and Cole from another tragic ending.

The red skin of Belthazor turned into the flesh of an human. His dark eyes changed in the blue eyes. The blue eyes she loved.

"Cole," Phoebe said, while she ran towards him, not really believing that he actually did return. She had thought she would never see him again.

She knelt down beside Cole who lay on the floor with the wound Belthazor had. She stroked his forehead, while Leo began to heal Cole's wound. Phoebe looked at Leo after he was done.

"You completely healed him... that must mean..."

"There isn't anything demonic left in him," Leo gave Phoebe a smile.

Phoebe hugged Cole, slowly letting the feeling of unbelievable happiness flow into her body. Cole was still a little confused about what happened, but he knew for sure something good happened if he was here with Phoebe who hold him tight.

"I thought I lost you," Phoebe said, while she held him even tighter, because this time she wasn't going to let him go. She would never let him go again.

A few weeks later 

"We definitely need to find that marvellous clock we had in the future... Too bad I didn't ask my future-self where we bought it," Phoebe said before she took a sip of her coffee.

She and Cole were going to look for furniture after breakfast. Cole had asked her help for decorating his apartement, especially since she someday would move in with him. Indeed someday, because they decided to take it slowly this time. For now Phoebe still lived in the manor and Cole in his apartement, but it felt more like they had two houses now. The one day they were in the manor, the other in Cole's apartement.

Paige walked into the kitchen of the manor with her eyes half open. She rubbed sleepily in her eyes before she grabbed a bowl and the package of cereals from the table.

"What? We're out of cereals... again?" Paige mocked as she held the package cereals upside down and nothing came out of it. She looked accusing to Phoebe.

"I swear I didn't eat much out of it," Phoebe said.

Paige turned her accusing gaze to Cole, who was eating the last of the cereals in his bowl.

"Okay, this was the last bit of the package..." Cole admitted," but Leo already ate the half out of the package before I even began to eat."

Paige sighed. She kind of was already forgotten how it was to live with her sisters and partners in one house before Cole came back. She just had to got used again of finding no cereals left in the morning.

"Remind me not to go out with a man who likes cereals as well, because else I never have the chance to eat some cereals in this house," Paige said as she began to search in the refrigerator for something to eat.

Phoebe smiled. A few years ago she had said that her perfect man shouldn't like cereals, but well, that was before she met Cole. And Cole did like cereals. Cole wasn't who she imagined the perfect man to be like. A perfect man wouldn't lie, a perfect man wouldn't have an evil past. But she didn't want that perfect man. She wanted Cole, he wasn't the perfect man, but he was perfect _for her_.

They heard Piper and Leo's voices in the distance, slowly getting louder as Piper and Leo came closer to the kitchen. It sounded like Piper and Leo had a fight again.

"Oh, I say Leo did something stupid," Phoebe guessed.

"No, Piper's hormones," Paige said.

"I'll go for the Paige made a mistake," Cole added.

"How strange you always choose that option," Paige sarcastically said.

Paige trusted Cole to be good now, but it didn't mean they got along very well. A past like they had, in which they tried to kill each other, wasn't something that would go away in one day. It would take time and maybe... someday they would like each other, but for now they tolerated each other for Phoebe's sake.

"But I wanted to wear that blouse today," The pregnant Piper said who just walked in the kitchen with Leo.

"You didn't tell me I only had till yesterday to fix the washing-machine," Leo contradicted.

"Well, I can't wear a filthy blouse now, can I ?" Piper asked, while she grabbed some food out of the refrigerator and walked out of the kitchen again as Leo followed her.

"We should go as well, honey," Phoebe said to Cole, while she got up from her seat.

"Whoa, were are you going, people? You owe me some money, because I was right," Paige stopped Phoebe and Cole from going,"... it definitely was Piper's hormones, else she never would have become so upset of not being able to wear that blouse."

"Yes, but Leo already promised to make that washing-machine a week ago," Phoebe said, trying to persuade her sister and boyfriend she won the bet this time.

"You both are forgetting some important information. Who was the one who broke the washing-machine in the first place?" Cole interrupted the sisters.

"Oh..." Paige moaned, remembering she was the one who accidently broke the washing-machine in the first place.

Paige pulled out twenty bucks and wanted to give it to Cole, but Cole didn't take it.

"You can keep the money this time, Paige," he said.

Cole wrapped his arms around Phoebe and kissed her. Paige watched them and surpressed the need to say they should get a room, but luckily for her the kiss didn't last hours this time. Paige still looked a bit wondering to Cole why he didn't take the money from the bet.

"Let's say, you don't have to pay for making mistakes. Me and Phoebe are happy you sometimes make mistakes," Cole gave as answer.

"Oh, definitely," Phoebe agreed.

Paige saw the shining sparkles of happiness in Phoebe's and Cole's eyes, that hadn't been there a few weeks ago.

"Yeah, me too," Paige smiled, agreeing with them.

A/N: _I hope I didn't dissapoint you people with this chapter, because it was mostly explanations and there actually wasn't manyPhoebe and Cole talking to each other, but I thought Phoebe and Cole already said the most of how they felt about each other in the last chapter. _

_Anyway, I wanted a happy ending in which Leo, Piper and Paige would have trust in Cole as well... because in almost every episode in Charmed there was always someone of Phoebe's family against their relation and it really annoyed me._

_I have no plans of making a sequel to this story... but maybe I will write another Phoebe/Cole fic soon. I actually would lik to write an AU story about them in another time era... maybe when they're in the wild, wild west in the time of cowboys and stuff. But I will think about that the coming days._

_Let's finish this fic with the words we all love to hear (and as a reminder to Brad Kern, that he has to let Phoebe end up with Cole as well) :_

_Phoebe & Cole forever, always..._


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